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HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
Boston  and  New  York 


RECOLLECTIONS 


RECOLLECTIONS 


BY 

WASHINGTON   GLADDEN 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

^be  RiticriJiDe  prcii  <CambnDfle 

1909 


COPYRIGHT,   1909,  BY  WASHINGTON  GLADDEN 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  October,  iqoQ 


CONTENTS 

I.  Vestiges  of  Infancy 1 

II.  Farm  Life  and  School  Life   ....  17 

III.  Village  Life  and  Apprenticeship  .     .  40 

IV.  The  Choice  of  a  Calling 55 

V.  College  Days 67 

VI.  Putting  on  the  Harness 85 

VII.  The  Bursting  of  the  Storm  ....    99 

VIII.  Dark  Days 118 

IX.  The  End  of  the  War 136 

X.  Among  the  Hills 158 

XI.  The  Foolishness  of  Reconstruction  .  176 
XII.  From  Study  to  Sanctum 182 

XIII.  The  Tweed  Ring 197 

XIV.  The  Greeley  Campaign  and  the  Credit 

MOBILIER 209 

XV.  The  Swing  Trial 223 

XVI.  Newspaper  Ethics 232 

XVII.  Back  to  New  England 239 

XVIII.  Heresy  Hunting 259 

XIX.  Postmeridian 282 


vi  CONTENTS 

XX.  The  Industrial  Revolution  ....  294 

XXL  A  Widening  Vocation 316 

XXII.  The  Municipal  Problem 328 

XXIII.  Bouquets  and  Brickbats 353 

XXIV.  The  Negro  Problem 366 

XXV.  A  Political  Retrospect 377 

XXVI.  Partnership  with  Plunderers  .     .     .  398 

XXVII.  October  Sunshine 410 

XXVIII.  Looking  Backward  and  Forward  .     .  422 
Index 435 

Note.  —  The  frontispiece  portrait  is  from  a  photograph  by  the 
Baker  Art  Gallery,  Columbus,  Ohio. 


RECOLLECTIONS 


RECOLLECTIONS 


CHAPTER  I 

VESTIGES   OF  INFANCY 

O  joy!  that  in  our  embers 

Is  something  that  doth  live, 
That  nature  yet  remembers 

What  was  so  fugitive! 

William  Wordsworth. 

The  story  which  I  have  undertaken  to  tell  is  that  of  an 
average  American.  It  holds  no  such  wonders  of  achieve- 
ment as  that  of  Booker  Washington  ;  it  follows  no  such 
romantic  paths  as  those  in  which  Jacob  Riis  has  led  us ; 
it  climbs  to  no  such  altitudes  of  dignity  and  power  as 
those  to  which  we  have  rejoiced  to  follow  Carl  Schurz. 
It  will  take  us  along  country  roads,  and  through  the 
busy  thoroughfares  of  cities ;  it  will  observe,  and  try  to 
interpret,  the  life  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  Ameri- 
can men  and  women.  Its  interest,  if  it  has  any,  will  not 
be  found  in  any  exploits  of  the  narrator,  but  in  whatever 
power  he  has  possessed  of  looking  sjnipathetically  at 
the  things  he  has  seen  and  of  accurately  reporting  them. 

My  life  began  in  the  little  hamlet  of  Pottsgrove,  in 
central  Pennsylvania,  in  the  angle  made  by  the  two 
branches  of  the  Susquehanna  River,  and  not  far  from 
their  junction  at  Northumberland.  My  father,  whose 
name  was  Solomon,  was  the  teacher  of  the  country 


2  RECOLLECTIONS 

school  in  this  district.  He  was  a  native  of  Southampton, 
Massachusetts,  the  second  of  a  family  of  twelve  children. 
His  father,  Thomas  Gladden,  was  a  shoemaker  by  trade, 
though  he  found  occasional  employment  in  the  harvest 
season  in  working  upon  the  neighboring  farms.  That 
kind  of  work  was  most  congenial  to  him,  for  he  was  a 
stalwart  man,  and  the  toil  of  the  field  was  more  welcome 
than  the  confinement  of  the  shop. 

My  father's  boyhood  had,  therefore,  been  spent  in  the 
lowliest  conditions.  It  would  not  be  true  to  say  that  he 
sprang  from  the  proletariat,  for  in  those  days  there  was 
no  such  thing.  My  grandfather  lived  in  his  own  house, 
had  his  own  small  garden  in  which  he  raised  a  large  part 
of  the  food  for  his  family,  worked  at  his  trade  in  the 
winter  and  on  the  farms  in  the  summer,  was  never  in 
want  or  in  debt,  and  no  sooner  than  any  other  sovereign 
would  have  taken  a  tip  or  accepted  charity.  His  father, 
Azariah,  had  been  a  soldier  of  the  Revolution.  He  en- 
listed from  New  Britain,  Connecticut,  in  the  summer  of 
1777,  and  was,  I  suppose,  in  the  army  of  Washington  at 
Valley  Forge  during  that  bitter  winter.  It  is  the  family 
tradition,  which  I  know  no  reason  to  dispute,  that  he 
was  one  of  Washington's  body-guard ;  a  big  brass  button 
has  descended  to  me,  which  has  stamped  upon  it  the 
legend  that  it  once  adorned  a  military  coat  worn  by  the 
great  commander.  My  father  heard  from  his  grandfather 
many  stirring  tales  of  the  days  when  he  was  with  Wash- 
ington, which  helps  to  explain  the  name  I  bear. 

My  great-grandfather's  name  was  Gladding.  By  what 
process  it  became  changed,  in  the  next  generation,  from 
a  present  participle  to  an  active  transitive  verb  I  do  not 


VESTIGES  OF  INFANCY  3 

know.  I  suppose  that  my  great-grandfather,  who  was 
born  at  Norwich,  Connecticut,  was  a  descendant  of  John 
Gladding,  who  came  to  Plymouth,  Massachusetts,  in 
1640,  and  afterwards  settled  in  Bristol,  Rhode  Island, 
but  of  this  I  have  no  definite  proof.  The  Claddings 
of  that  vicinage  are  descendants  of  John,  and  I  have 
assumed  that  I  belong  among  them. 

Most  of  the  boys  and  girls  of  my  grandfather's  family 
found  employment  on  the  farms  and  in  the  farmhouses 
of  the  vicinage.  It  was  a  plain  countryside,  lying  west 
of  Mount  Tom  and  not  far  from  its  base  —  the  quiet- 
est and  most  decorous  neighborhood,  I  suppose,  in  all 
the  world,  and  so  they  called  it  Bedlam.  I  remember, 
very  well,  my  father's  talk  about  his  old  home,  —  his 
glowing  pictures  of  Mount  Tom,  over  whose  brow  the 
sun  rose  every  morning,  and  whose  rocky  slopes  were 
infested  with  rattlesnakes. 

My  father's  health,  in  his  youth,  was  frail ;  he  was  un- 
able to  do  the  rough  work  of  the  farms,  and  the  family 
seems  to  have  determined  to  make  a  scholar  of  him. 
There  was  an  academy  of  some  note  at  Southampton, 
and  thither  he  was  sent ;  he  worked  for  his  board  in  the 
family  of  a  good  physician,  who  took  special  interest  in 
him,  and  thus  gained  his  equipment  for  the  work  of 
a  teacher.  Before  he  was  of  age  he  began  teaching  in 
the  country  towns  of  Hampshire  County ;  when  I  lived 
in  the  Connecticut  valley,  in  later  days,  I  used  to  meet 
men,  now  and  then,  who  had  been  his  pupils,  and  who 
carried  his  name  in  grateful  memory. 

What  started  him  on  his  way  westward  I  never  knew ; 
but  some  time  in  the  early  thirties  he  turned  his  face 


4  RECOLLECTIONS 

toward  the  setting  sun,  and  found  his  first  halting-place 
in  southern  central  New  York,  in  the  town  of  Owego, 
on  the  Susquehanna  River,  where  he  taught  a  country 
district  school  for  one  winter  only.  Thence  he  moved 
southward,  following,  perhaps,  the  Susquehanna,  and 
landed  in  the  neighborhood  where  the  rest  of  his  life  was 
to  be  spent.  Pennsylvania  was  just  then  getting  ready 
to  establish  a  free-school  system,  which  went  into  effect 
in  1S34;  probably  he  thought  that  a  market  would  thus 
be  created  for  the  wares  of  the  schoolmaster.  I  sus- 
pect that  he  must  have  gone  down  the  river  on  one  of 
the  lumber  rafts  which  carried  the  white-pine  lumber 
of  the  Owego  forests,  on  the  spring  floods,  down  to  the 
Pennsylvania  farms. 

The  transition  from  the  rocky  ridges  and  sandy  plains 
of  western  Massachusetts  to  the  rich  and  fertile  fields 
of  the  lower  Susquehanna  valley,  and  from  the  staid 
severities  of  New  England  Puritanism  to  the  free  and 
unconventional  manners  of  the  Pennsylvania  Dutch, 
must  have  been  to  my  father  an  interesting  experience. 
Northumberland  County,  in  Pennsylvania,  was  farther 
then  from  Hampshire  County,  in  Massachusetts,  than 
the  heart  of  Africa  now  is  from  the  middle  of  the  conti- 
nent. Measured  by  the  standards  of  the  postal  service, 
it  was  five  times  as  far  away ;  for  a  five-cent  stamp  will 
carry  a  letter  from  Columbus  to  Congo,  to-day,  while  the 
letter  from  which  I  am  about  to  quote,  sent  from  Potts- 
grove  to  Southampton,  in  1832,  cost  the  receiver  twenty- 
five  cents.  The  civilization  which  my  father  encountered 
in  his  new  home  was  full  of  novelties  for  him.  "What 
first  attracts  the  attention  of  a  New  England  man"  — 


VESTIGES  OF  INFANCY  5 

thus  he  writes  to  his  brother  at  home  —  "is  the  wagons 
of  enormous  bulk,  to  which  six  horses  are  frequently 
attached,  and  generally  as  many  as  four.  The  driver 
always  mounts  one  of  the  horses  to  guide  the  others. 
The  management  of  the  farms  is  also  different  from  the 
New  England  method.  No  oxen  are  used.  The  hoeing 
of  the  corn  is  accomplished  by  the  plow  and  harrow. 
The  women  are  accustomed  to  work  in  the  fields  in  many 
places,  and  generally  in  the  time  of  hajmaking  and  har- 
vesting. On  public  days  or  times  when  the  militia  or 
the  volunteers  meet,  the  parade-ground  swarms  with 
women  peddlers.  Perhaps  the  women  are  not  possessed 
of  quite  as  much  modesty  as  your  Yankee  ladies."  And 
then  he  proceeds  to  animadvert  on  certain  social  cus- 
toms which,  to  his  severe  morality,  verged  on  the  scan- 
dalous. He  doubts  whether  he  shall  be  content  to  find 
a  permanent  home  among  such  people. 

But  there  is  quick  demand  for  such  trained  faculty 
as  he  possesses,  and  he  is  soon  at  work  ;  within  a  few  days 
after  his  arrival  he  is  installed  as  master  of  the  district 
school  in  the  little  hamlet  of  Pottsgrove.  Six  months 
later  he  writes  to  his  brother:  — 

1  have  a  small  school,  no  more  than  thirty  scholars  at 
present ;  but  if  I  continue  to  teach  here  through  fall  and 
winter,  the  number  will  be  much  greater.  I  shall  be  urg;ed 
to  continue  longer  than  this  quarter,  but  it  is  uncertain 
that  I  shall.  The  honest  Dutchmen  prefer  the  Little 
Yankee  to  the  drunken  Englishman  who  taught  here  last 
winter,  or  to  the  dissipated  and  profane  characters  who 
have  generally  taught  here. 

You  wished  me  to  give  you  all  the  interesting  informa- 


6  RECOLLECTIONS 

tion  of  this  section  of  the  country.  But  that  which  is  in- 
teresting news  to  me  would  be  uninteresting  to  you.  If  I 
should  tell  you  that  Judge  Harper  fell  from  his  horse  and 
broke  his  thigh  last  week,  or  that  Dr.  James  Dougal  con- 
tinues to  drink  wine  to  excess,  it  could  not  be  gratify- 
ing at  all  to  you.  And  news  of  a  pubUc  character  —  the 
desolation  occasioned  by  cholera  or  the  savage  barbar- 
ities of  the  Blackhawks  upon  the  frontiers  of  lUinois  — 
you  receive  by  the  public  papers. 

These  bits  of  my  father's  letters  give  some  hint  of  his 
intellectual  habit.  I  have  but  a  few  of  them,  but  his 
clear  round  handwriting,  not  unlike  that  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  is  a  fitting  vehicle  for  the  accurate  and  felicitous 
English  in  which  his  thought  finds  expression.  There  is 
a  touch  of  humor  now  and  then,  but  the  prevailing  mood 
is  one  of  deep  seriousness.  To  his  younger  brother  he 
gives  a  great  deal  of  fatherly  advice.  He  fears  lest  his 
brother  may  be  corrupted  by  the  vices  of  the  country- 
side, whose  contamination  he  has  watched  with  solici- 
tude, and  he  urges  as  a  wise  prophylactic  the  occupation 
of  the  mind  by  higher  interests.  "Treatises  of  natural 
history,"  he  says,  "are  well  calculated  to  produce  plea- 
sure in  reading  and  a  desire  to  improve  the  intellectual 
powers.  Nor  should  the  study  of  the  sciences  be  neg- 
lected by  any  individual  who  does  not  wish  to  exclude 
himself  from  human  society."  The  high  valuation  here 
placed  on  scientific  study  was  not  common  in  those  days. 
Yet  most  of  my  father's  books  which  have  come  down  to 
me  are  of  this  character  —  astronomy,  chemistry,  and 
natural  history  evidently  had  a  fascination  for  him ;  and 
while  he  had  no  occasion  to  teach  these  subjects  in  the 


VESTIGES  OF  INFANCY  7 

schools  of  Pennsylvania,  he  was  pushing  his  explora- 
tions in  this  field. 

One  of  my  father's  pupils  in  the  Owego  school  was  a 
country  girl  by  the  name  of  Amanda  Daniels.  It  would 
appear  that  she  also,  having  graduated  from  the  district 
school,  had  found  employment  as  a  teacher  in  her  own 
neighborhood.  Correspondence  followed:  I  have  the 
sacred  fragments  of  the  letter  in  which  my  father  told 
my  mother  his  love  and  besought  her  to  share  his  life. 
He  brought  her  to  Pottsgrove  in  the  summer  of  1833, 
and  they  at  once  began  to  teach  in  adjoining  districts, 
setting  up  their  home  in  a  house  which  stood  midway 
between  the  two  schooliiouses. 

My  mother's  father  was  also  a  shoemaker,  who  stuck 
to  his  last  in  the  winter,  and  wielded  the  scythe  and  the 
hoe  in  the  summer,  on  a  little  farm  of  his  own.  One  of 
John  G.  Saxe's  poems  contains  a  stanza  which  I  have  not 
found  it  difficult  to  remember:  — 

Depend  upon  it,  my  snobbish  friend, 
Your  family  thread  you  can't  ascend 
Without  great  reason  to  apprehend 
"You  may  find  it  waxed  at  tlie  other  end, 
By  some  plebeian  vocation. 

Both  strands  of  my  "family  thread"  were  undeniably 
treated  after  this  manner  at  a  period  quite  within  my 
own  remembrance,  which  fact  makes  it  superfluous  for 
me  to  claim  identification  with  the  working-classes.  It 
has  never  been  possible  for  me  to  forget  the  fact,  and 
I  am  not  conscious  of  having  tried  to  do  so.  I  have 
never  found  it  necessary  to  cultivate  sympathy  with 
the  people  who  work  with  their  hands.  My  mother  was 


8  RECOLLECTIONS 

also  one  of  twelve  brothers  and  sisters;  race  suicide 
was  not  in  those  days  an  imminent  peril. 

After  two  or  three  terms  of  teaching  in  separate 
schools  my  parents  found  one  schoolhouse  enough  for 
the  family,  and  my  mother  was  fain  to  content  herself 
with  the  care  of  one  small  pupil  at  home.  It  was  on  the 
11th  of  February,  1836,  that  this  charge  was  laid  upon 
her. 

The  records  of  the  next  few  years  are  meagre.  My 
mother,  who  was,  I  believe,  an  accurate  chronicler,  told 
me  in  after  years  that  my  education  began  at  a  very 
early  day ;  that  when  I  was  two  years  and  a  half  old  I 
was  able  to  read,  in  turn  with  the  others,  my  verse  in  the 
Bible  at  family  prayers.  Of  learning  to  read  and  to  write 
and  to  perform  the  rudimentary  operations  of  arithme- 
tic, I  have  no  recollection,  I  faintly  recall  committing 
certain  spelling  lessons  against  the  return  of  my  father 
from  school,  and  memorizing  the  etymological  defini- 
tions in  Kirkham's  Grammar;  this  must  have  been 
before  I  was  four  years  old.  My  father  was  evidently 
bound  that  I  should  know  how  to  use  the  English  lan- 
guage. 

This  process  of  cram,  administered  to  the  mind  of  a 
young  child,  was,  of  course,  highly  unscientific  and  alto- 
gether reprehensible ;  the  only  advantage  to  me  was  that 
it  gave  me  a  firm  hold  on  my  father's  memory.  He  died 
before  I  was  six  years  old,  but  he  has  always  been  a  dis- 
tinct figure  in  my  recollection.  His  form,  his  face,  his 
voice  have  always  been  with  me ;  many  of  the  scenes 
in  which  he  appeared  have  returned  to  me  continually 
through  all  my  life.    He  died  before  the  days  of  the 


VESTIGES  OF  INFANCY  9 

dagueiTeotype,  so  that  I  have  had  no  other  portrait  of 
him  than  that  which  is  stamped  upon  my  memory. 
That  one  could  carry  clear  sense-impressions  from  such 
an  early  age  through  a  long  life,  I  would  not  have 
believed  if  I  had  not  experienced  it. 

For  the  last  two  years  of  his  life,  after  my  brother  was 
born,  I  must  have  been  my  father's  nearly  constant 
companion ;  I  remember  the  larks  I  had  with  him :  tod- 
dling to  school  in  the  winter  on  the  crust  of  the  deep 
snow,  which  held  me  when  he  broke  through  at  every 
step  and  I  laughed  merrily  at  him ;  sitting  on  the  back 
of  our  black  moolley  cow,  where  he  held  me  firm  and 
laughed  at  me ;  walking  to  church  in  the  summer  time 
down  a  long  hill  in  Washingtonville,  on  the  slope  of 
which  our  house  stood,  and  hearing  him  tell  a  neighbor 
who  walked  with  us  that  a  church  which  we  passed  was 
a  Christ-ian  church,  with  the  i  in  the  first  syllable  long. 
One  memory,  naturally  more  distinct  than  most  others, 
is  that  of  a  savage  surgical  operation  by  which  the 
removal  of  enlarged  tonsils  was  attempted.  There  were 
no  adequate  instruments  in  those  days  for  the  treatment 
of  such  cases,  and  anrcsthetics  were  not  yet.  The  first 
attempt  was  unsuccessful,  and  I  remember  my  father's 
effort  to  reassure  and  hearten  me  for  the  second  oper- 
ation ;  some  of  the  words  that  he  used  in  that  conver- 
sation are  distinctly  in  my  memory  to-day,  and  I  know 
that  no  one  has  ever  assisted  me  in  recalling  them.  All 
these  things  happened  before  I  was  four  years  old.  I 
record  them  here,  because  they  may  have  some  psycholo- 
gical value,  in  indicating  the  backward  reach  of  memory. 

One  very  vivid  memory,  which  dates  from  about  this 


10  RECOLLECTIONS 

time,  gives  me  the  clearest  impression  of  my  father's 
face.  It  is  a  scene  at  a  religious  meeting,  at  a  country 
schoolhouse,  in  the  evening.  My  father  had  been  reared 
a  Congregationalist,  but  he  had  not  connected  himself 
with  the  church  in  Southampton.  In  Pennsylvania  there 
were  no  Congregational  churches,  and  the  stiff  Calvin- 
ism of  the  Pennsylvania  Presbyterians  being  too  strong 
doctrine  for  him,  he  had  allied  himself  with  the  Meth- 
odists. I  often  went  with  him  to  camp-meetings  and 
revivals,  and  have  never  forgotten  how  the  more  boister- 
ous demonstrations  of  those  services  seemed  to  affect 
him. 

On  the  night  of  which  I  speak,  he  was  standing  behind 
the  schoolhouse  desk,  taking  part  (for  he  was  what  they 
called  a  local  preacher)  in  the  conduct  of  the  service. 
There  was  only  one  candle  in  the  room ;  it  stood  before 
him  on  the  desk  and  lit  up  his  face.  Some  powerful 
evangelist  had  been  preaching,  and  the  physical  effects 
which  frequently  followed  such  appeals  were  in  full 
view.  Men  and  women  were  prostrate  on  the  floor, 
groaning  and  screaming  frantically;  some  were  tr3ang 
to  pray;  some  were  shouting  "Glory!"  the  excitement 
and  confusion  were  indescribable.  I  sat  on  a  low  seat 
near  my  father  and  looked  into  his  face ;  he  stood  per- 
fectly silent;  there  were  tears  in  his  eyes,  but  the  ex- 
pression on  his  countenance  was  one  of  intense  pain. 

It  must  have  been  early  in  my  fifth  year  that  my 
parents  removed  to  the  smart  village  of  Lewisburg,  on 
tli6  opposite  shore  of  the  Susquehanna,  where  my  father 
became  head  master  of  one  of  the  village  schools.  I  am 
sure  about  the  date,  for  I  remember  that  it  was  in  the 


VESTIGES  OF  INFANCY  11 

yard  before  our  house  in  Lewisburg  that  another  infan- 
tile politician  and  myself  were  shouting  "Hurrah  for 
Harrison !"  The  other  youthful  ^^Tiig,  as  I  distinctly  re- 
member, could  not  roll  his  r's;  they  had  the  force  of  i/'s. 

In  Lewisburg  my  father's  merits  as  a  scholar  and 
teacher  were  speedily  recognized ;  in  the  church  and  in 
the  community  he  must  have  been  held  in  high  respect 
and  honor.  It  was  more  than  fifty  years  after  his  death 
that  I  first  revisited  Lewisburg,  and  it  was  grateful  to 
me  to  find  his  name  held  by  numbers  of  his  old  pupils 
in  affectionate  remembrance. 

It  was  in  the  late  summer  of  1841  that  my  mother 
took  me  with  her  on  a  visit  to  Danville,  thirty  or  forty 
miles  away.  We  went  by  the  canal  packet,  and  on  our 
return,  after  an  absence  of  a  few  days,  as  we  drew  near 
to  Lewisburg,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  river,  my 
mother  noted  that  the  curtains  of  our  house,  which 
stood  near  the  bank,  were  not  lifted.  "I  fear,"  she  said, 
"  that  your  father  is  sick."  His  haggard  face,  as  he  met 
us  at  the  door,  confirmed  her  apprehension. 

It  was  an  acute  attack  of  some  enteric  malady,  and 
the  end  came  soon.  How  vividly  it  all  comes  back  to 
me :  my  father's  broken  words  to  me  —  they  were  his 
last  words,  I  shall  never  lose  them  if  I  live  a  thousand 
lives ;  the  droning,  dreadful  days  at  a  neighbor's  while 
we  waited  for  the  funeral;  the  solemn  procession,  on 
foot,  to  the  church,  and  the  burjing-ground ;  the  scene 
at  the  grave;  the  many  nights  that  I  cried  myself  to 
sleep.  Childish  sorrows  are  short-lived,  we  say ;  but  this 
one  was  not.  It  has  never  let  go  of  my  heart ;  the  pain 
of  it  is  poignant  yet.  This  man  had  so  wound  himself 


12  RECOLLECTIONS 

into  the  life  of  this  child  that  they  could  not  be  torn 
apart  without  lasting  suffering. 

After  my  father's  death,  my  mother  took  up  the  work 
which  he  had  laid  down,  teaching,  for  some  months,  the 
school  of  which  he  had  been  principal ;  but  late  in  the 
following  winter  she  returned,  with  her  two  boys,  to  her 
home  in  Owego.  That  journey  is  another  vivid  memory. 
My  uncle  had  come  to  Pennsylvania  for  a  load  of  clover- 
seed,  for  which  he  found  market  among  the  farmers  of 
his  neighborhood,  and  we  were  passengers  on  his  heavily 
freighted  sleigh.  The  desolateness  and  terror  of  that 
long  winter  journey  through  the  interminable,  lonely 
woods,  and  by  narrow  roadways  cut  in  the  mountain- 
sides and  overlooking  abysses,  kept  me,  for  several  days, 
in  a  state  of  nervous  tension,  from  which  the  safe  landing 
at  my  uncle's  farmhouse  was  an  unspeakable  relief. 

As  I  recall  the  experience  of  that  journey,  I  am 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  amazing  contrasts  between 
the  country  as  my  childish  memories  recall  it,  and  that 
in  which  we  are  living  to-day.  Here  is  an  American  who 
refuses  to  be  counted  among  the  aged,  and  what  tre- 
mendous changes  in  the  physical  and  economic  condi- 
tions of  this  nation  his  recollection  spans ! 

The  country  of  those  earliest  memories  was  primi- 
tive and  rude  and  simple,  almost  beyond  the  conception 
of  those  who  are  now  young.  In  all  the  eastern  and 
eastern-central  states  there  were  many  well-tilled  acres 
and  comfortable  homes,  a  considerable  number  of 
thriving  towns,  and  a  few  smart  little  cities.  But  a  large 
share  of  all  this  broad  land  was  still  primeval  forest  or 
virgin  prairie.  Every  mountain  brook  was  full  of  trout. 


VESTIGES  OF  INFANCY  13 

and  the  great  game,  deer  and  bears  and  wolves  and 
panthers  and  foxes,  roamed  aU  over  the  moxmtains.  It 
was  no  uncommon  thing,  when  I  was  living  on  my 
uncle's  farm,  to  see  deer  appear  in  our  clearings ;  bears  I 
never  saw  wild,  but  foxes  were  frequent,  and  catamounts 
were  not  rare. 

A  few  short  railways,  in  different  parts  of  the  country, 
were  venturing  upon  the  dubious  experiment  of  steam 
transportation,  but  I  suppose  that  not  one  in  ten  thou- 
sand of  all  the  people  of  the  United  States  had  seen 
a  railway  car.  Steamboats  were  beginning  to  ply  upon 
the  inland  waters,  but  no  vessel  propelled  entirely  by 
steam  had  yet  crossed  the  ocean. 

When  my  life  began  there  were  but  twenty-five  states 
—  Missouri,  the  last  to  be  admitted,  having  added  her 
star  to  the  flag  in  1821.  Arkansas  was  admitted  in  1837. 
In  the  first  geography  which  I  studied,  Michigan,  Iowa, 
and  Wisconsin  were  territories.  What  is  now  Minnesota 
was  part  of  Iowa  territory.  In  the  year  of  my  birth  Iowa 
had  10,500  inhabitants  and  Wisconsin  31,000.  All  these 
great  central  states  were  wildernesses,  and  the  popula- 
tion had  not  gone  far  beyond  the  Mississippi  River. 
New  York  city,  by  the  last  census  before  I  was  born,  had 
a  population  of  202,589.  Chicago  had  been  three  years 
incorporated  as  a  town ;  it  began  with  175  houses  and 
550  inhabitants. 

These  facts  show  how  little  had  been  done  toward 
the  development  of  the  resources  of  this  great  country, 
seventy  years  ago.  The  population  was  sparse,  the 
apparatus  of  civilization  was  rude ;  tools  were  primitive, 
machinery  had  hardly  begun  to  be  used  in  agriculture. 


14  RECOLLECTIONS 

Industry  was  still  largely  domestic ;  the  clothing  of  the 
great  majority  of  the  people  was  spun  and  woven  in  their 
own  homes.  There  were  few  large  factories  of  any  kind. 
Cotton  had  begun  to  be  spun  and  woven  to  a  consider- 
able extent,  but  for  the  most  part  the  mechanical  work 
of  the  country  was  done  in  small  establishments  em- 
ploying but  few  hands.  Employers  generally  worked 
with  their  men  in  small  groups,  and  all  ate  at  the  same 
table ;  there  were  no  social  distinctions  between  capital- 
ists and  laborers. 

There  had  been,  before  my  day  began,  a  few  char- 
tered companies  in  which  capital  had  been  combined  for 
industrial  purposes,  but  each  of  these,  I  think,  had  been 
created  by  a  special  act  of  the  legislature ;  the  industrial 
corporation,  in  the  form  in  which  we  now  have  it,  had 
not  been  invented.  It  was  during  the  year  1837  that 
Connecticut  passed  a  general  law  empowering  groups 
of  persons  to  combine  their  capital  for  business  purposes. 
Other  states  followed  the  example.  Thus  this  mighty 
engine  of  finance,  with  such  vast  capacities  for  service 
and  such  enormous  powers  of  spoliation  and  oppression, 
has  sprung  into  existence  and  taken  possession  of  the 
earth  during  a  lifetime. 

The  decade  of  which  I  have  just  been  speaking  seems, 
indeed,  to  have  been  the  beginning  of  a  new  era  in  in- 
dustrial development.  "This  homely  rural  nation," 
says  President  Woodrow  Wilson,  "which  in  1828  chose 
Andrew  Jackson  to  be  its  President,  was  about  to  pro- 
duce a  vast  and  complex  urban  civiHzation.  Its  old 
habits  were  about  to  be  broken  up.  Its  railways  were  to 
produce  a  ceaseless  movement  of  population,  section 


VESTIGES  OF  INFANCY  15 

interchanging  people  with  section  —  opinions,  manners, 
and  purposes  made  common  and  alike  through  great 
stretches  of  the  land  by  reason  of  constant  enterprise 
and  united  effort.  The  laboring  classes,  who  had  hitherto 
worked  chiefly  on  their  own  initiative  and  responsibility, 
were  now  to  be  drawn  together  in  large  factories,  to  be 
directed  by  others,  so  that  dangerous  contrasts  both  of 
fortune  and  of  opportunity  should  presently  be  created 
between  capitalist  and  employee.  .  .  .  The  first  signs 
of  a  day  of  capitalistic  combinations  and  of  monopoly 
on  the  great  scale  began  to  be  visible.  .  .  .  The  aggre- 
gate material  power  of  the  country  was  to  be  greatly 
increased,  but  individual  opportunity  was  to  become 
unequal ;  society  was  to  exchange  its  simple  for  a  com- 
plex structure,  fruitful  of  new  problems  of  life,  full  of 
new  capacities  for  disorder  and  disease."  ' 

This  was,  indeed,  what  was  to  be,  but  nobody  living 
at  that  time  could  have  begun  to  divine  it ;  these  secular 
movements  of  social  evolution  are  never  predictable  by 
any  clairvoyance  that  we  can  summon.  But  this,  for 
substance,  is  what  has  been  happening  since  that  winter 
ride  over  the  Alleghanies.  It  almost  staggers  one  to  try 
to  span  the  experience  of  a  single  life. 

I  have  seen  the  forests  disappear  from  a  large  part  of 
the  continent,  sometimes  in  a  ruthless  and  disastrous 
slaughter ;  I  have  seen  the  wild  game  which  once  roamed 
everywhere  driven  to  a  few  sanctuaries  in  the  western 
mountains,  where  they  cannot  long  survive ;  I  have  seen 
the  population  spreading  through  the  Mississippi  valley 
and  over  the  plains  and  mountains  of  the  great  North- 

1  Division  and  Reunion,  p.  103. 


16  RECOLLECTIONS 

west ;  I  have  seen  a  mighty  empire  spring  to  life  upon 
the  Pacific  coast,  and  great  cities,  scores  of  them,  rise 
from  the  heart  of  the  forest  or  the  sedges  of  the  lake 
or  the  bosom  of  the  prairie ;  I  have  seen  the  land,  from 
ocean  to  ocean,  covered  with  a  network  of  steam  and 
electric  railways,  whose  veinings  give  to  almost  every 
hamlet  in  the  land  immediate  and  cheap  access  to  all  the 
rest  of  the  world.  All  the  marvels  of  electricity  in  its 
application  to  human  needs  have  appeared  within  this 
time ;  when  I  was  a  lad  it  was  a  curious  toy,  I  remember 
well  the  first  telegram ;  the  first  ocean  cable  was  laid  when 
I  was  in  college;  the  telephone,  the  electric  light,  the 
wireless  telegraph,  the  Roentgen  rays  are  later  prodigies. 
I  have  seen,  also,  as  the  result  of  multiplying  machinery 
for  shop  and  farm,  the  population  steadily  lessening  on 
the  farming  lands  and  massing  in  the  cities ;  and  I  have 
watched  the  whole  of  that  ominous  polarization  of  social 
classes  —  the  organizers  and  employers  of  labor  gather- 
ing their  hoards  together,  and,  over  against  them,  the 
men  who  do  the  work  becoming  banded  and  regimented 
for  a  perennial  struggle  over  the  product  of  labor.  Such 
a  marshaling  of  classes  for  industrial  war  could  never 
have  been  dreamed  of  in  my  boyhood. 

Such  a  swift  glance  over  the  seven  decades  may  make 
it  seem  worth  while  to  pass  leisurely  through  them, 
gathering  up  such  incidents  and  impressions  as  may 
throw  light  upon  the  course  of  events  and  the  stream  of 
tendencies.  For  it  is  not  in  the  economic  realm  alone 
that  great  movements  have  been  in  progress ;  in  politics 
and  science,  in  education  and  religion,  the  changes  have 
been  no  less  notable. 


CHAPTER  II 

FABM  LIFE  AND  SCHOOL  LIFE 

Shades  of  the  prison-house  begin  to  close 

Upon  the  growing  boy ; 
But  he  beholds  the  light,  and  whence  it  flows, 

He  sees  it  in  his  joy. 

WiUiam  Wordsworth. 

For  a  few  months  after  my  mother's  return  to  Owego, 
I  found  a  home  in  the  farmhouse  of  my  uncle,  three  miles 
from  the  village.  The  next  autumn,  one  of  the  farmers 
of  that  neighborhood,  who  had  emigrated  from  South- 
ampton, in  Massachusetts,  proposed  to  return  to  his  old 
home,  and  my  mother  seized  the  opportunity  to  send 
me  with  him,  for  a  visit  to  my  grandfather.  The  jour- 
ney of  perhaps  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  was  made 
in  a  one-horse  buggy  of  somewhat  spacious  dimensions, 
which  carried  a  small  trunk  behind  the  single  seat 
whereon  sat  the  farmer  and  his  wife  with  a  babs  in  her 
arms,  and  which  admitted  a  round  cheese-box  next  to  the 
dashboard,  that  held  the  provisions  for  the  journey  and 
served  as  a  seat  for  me.  How  many  days  we  were  on  the 
road  I  do  not  remember ;  it  must  have  been  a  week.  What 
a  weariness  it  was !  The  roads  were  rough,  the  inns  prim- 
itive, the  weather  often  harsh,  and  a  small  boy  of  seven 
who  sat  numb  and  cramped  through  all  those  days  of 
torture  might  well  be  skeptical  concerning  the  pleasure 
of  travel.  But  I  remember <  with  delight,  some  pictur- 
esque miles  along  the  headwaters  of  the  Delaware,  and  a 


18  RECOLLECTIONS 

glorious  view  from  the  top  of  the  Catskills ;  and  I  recall 
the  ferry,  worked  by  horses  in  a  treadmill,  which  carried 
us  across  the  river  at  Hudson,  and  a  restful  Sunday 
spent  at  Old  Stockbridge. 

We  had  nearly  reached  the  end  of  our  journey  before 
we  had  seen  a  railway  train  or  a  railway  track ;  but  some- 
where in  western  Massachusetts  we  came  upon  the  track 
of  the  Western  Railroad,  which  connected  Springfield 
with  Albany.  Presently  a  passenger  train  came  speeding 
past  us  from  the  west.  It  was  a  sensation  quite  unforget- 
table. Our  charioteer,  with  exorbitant  faith  in  the  speed 
of  his  nag,  spurred  him  into  a  run  to  keep  up  with  the 
train,  but  soon  desisted.  That  was  the  only  glimpse 
we  had  of  a  railway,  in  all  this  journey  of  two  hundred 
and  fifty  miles,  through  the  heart  of  New  York  and  Mas- 
sachusetts. 

For  nearly  a  year  I  lived  with  my  grandfather  and 
grandmother  in  their  little  old  house  on  Bedlam  Street. 
Mount  Tom,  of  which  my  father  had  so  often  told  me, 
lifted  up  his  shaggy  sides  toward  the  sunrising ;  the  little 
Manhan  River,  whose  name  was  also  familiar  to  me, 
greeted  me  like  an  old  friend,  and  many  memories  of 
my  father  endeared  the  place.  They  took  me  to  a  nook 
in  the  woods  near  the  house,  where  he  had  braided  the 
branches  of  pine  trees  into  a  bower  for  the  diversion  of 
his  sister,  who  was  an  invalid;  near  by  was  his  "seat," 
where  he  had  fitted  a  plank  between  two  contiguous  oak 
trees  and  had  used  it  as  an  outdoor  study,  to  which 
he  was  wont  in  the  summer  to  resort  with  his  books. 
The  seat  was  broken  down,  but  bits  of  the  plank  were 
there;  the  trees  had  grown  about  the  ends  of  it  and 


FARM  LIFE  AND  SCHOOL  LIFE         19 

held  them  fast.  Was  it  strange  that  I  should  like  to  sit 
between  those  old  trees  and  listen  to  the  whisperings 
of  the  forest? 

I  have  always  had  reason  to  be  grateful  for  the  im- 
pressions made  upon  my  life  by  the  contact  w'hich  this 
year  in  Massachusetts  gave  me  with  the  Puritanism  of 
the  New  England  countryside  in  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  There  was  a  flavor  in  it,  easily 
enough  perceptible  to  a  boy  of  eight,  altogether  unlike 
that  of  central  Pennsylvania  or  central  New  York.  Liv- 
ing in  a  new  community  is  a  little  like  learning  a  new 
language:  it  gives  you  a  new  set  of  windows,  through 
which  to  look  out  on  life.  The  Yankee  way  of  seeing 
things  is  distinctly  unlike  that  of  the  Dutchman  or  the 
New  Yorker,  and  a  child  unconsciously  adopts  the  men- 
tal attitude  of  the  people  among  whom  he  lives. 

I  attended  school  for  two  terms  in  the  Bedlam  school- 
house  ;  I  knew  all  the  people  in  the  neighborhood ;  I 
worked  in  the  fields  of  the  farmers  and  sat  at  their  tables, 
and  all  their  life  became  familiar  to  me.  The  first  money 
I  ever  earned  was  hi  a  harvest  field  on  Bedlam  Street. 
We  were  getting  in  the  rye,  and,  with  a  larger  boy,  who 
belonged  upon  the  farm,  I  toiled  hard  from  early  morn- 
ing till  sunset,  encouraged  by  the  promise  of  wages  for 
my  work.  A  wiry  boy  of  eight  can  heap  together  a  good 
many  sheaves  of  rye  in  twelve  hours,  and  I  was  made  to 
feel,  all  day  long,  that  I  was  helping  famously.  AMien 
the  even  was  come,  like  the  men  in  the  parable,  I  was 
called  to  receive  my  hire,  and  instead  of  getting  what 
the  men  in  the  parable  got,  "every  man  a  penny,"  my 
compensation  was  a  half-cent.  Such  a  coin  was  then  in 


20  RECOLLECTIONS 

circulation.  The  use  of  it  I  could  not  quite  understand, 
for  there  was  nothing  in  the  world  for  which  you  could 
exchange  it.  Nobody  would  sell  you  less  than  a  cent's 
worth  of  anything.  I  kept  my  half-cent  for  some  time 
as  a  souvenir,  but  nobody  gave  me  another,  and  it 
finally  disappeared,  leaving,  perhaps,  an  incipient  sen- 
sitiveness respecting  the  conduct  of  those  "who  oppress 
the  hireling  in  his  wages." 

The  agricultural  methods  of  the  Connecticut  valley 
were  still  very  primitive  in  1844;  no  farm  machinery 
had  yet  appeared;  the  field  work  was  all  done  by  oxen, 
and  though  the  grain  cradle  was  employed,  the  sickle 
was  still  in  use  for  harvesting.  I  have  a  scar  on  the  little 
finger  of  my  left  hand  which  is  the  record  of  my  first 
lesson  in  reaping. 

Altogether  my  year  in  New  England  was  a  profitable 
year  of  my  childhood ;  the  schooling  which  one  gets  in 
such  an  experience  counts  for  much  in  after-life. 

In  October,  1844,  my  grandfather's  brother  was 
returning  to  western  New  York  from  a  visit  to  South- 
ampton, and  it  was  arranged  that  I  should  go,  in  his 
care,  as  far  as  Syracuse  on  my  homeward  way.  My 
grandfather  was  to  take  me  and  my  few  belongings  over 
the  hills  to  Chester,  on  the  Western  Railroad,  where  I 
should  meet  my  great-uncle,  and  go  with  him  by  rail  to 
Albany.  That  ride  of  twenty  miles,  in  my  grandfather's 
buggy,  half  of  the  distance  before  daybreak,  and  the 
railway  journey  in  a  second-class  car,  which  was  a  box 
without  springs,  and  whose  seats  were  benches  without 
cushions  or  backs,  is  another  leaf  in  my  experience  of 
the  tortures  of  travel.    I  had  not  slept  a  wink  the  night 


FARM  LIFE  AND  SCHOOL  LIFE         21 

before ;  I  had  sturdily  held  myself  awake,  listening  to 
the  clock,  for  fear  that  my  grandfather  might  oversleep ; 
and  what  with  the  loss  of  rest  and  the  long  drive  over 
the  rough  roads,  and  the  din  and  jar  and  dust  of  this 
horrible  railway  passage,  I  gained  about  as  vivid  an 
impression  of  the  Inferno  as  I  have  ever  had.  It  is  hard 
to  realize,  to-day,  that  the  discomforts  of  railway  travel 
ever  could  have  been  what  they  sometimes  were  in  the 
first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

At  Albany  we  were  drawn  by  a  stationary  engine  up 
a  heavy  grade,  and  then  let  down  by  gravity  to  Sche- 
nectady, where  we  embarked  on  a  canal  freight-boat 
for  Syracuse.  The  journey  must  have  taken  four  or 
five  days ;  the  boat  made  slow  progress ;  the  passenger 
packets,  which  often  overtook  us  and  passed  by  us, 
probably  made  the  journey  in  half  the  time.  But  it  was 
not  a  fatiguing  journey ;  we  sat  upon  the  deck,  in  the 
sweet  October  sunshine,  and  had  time  a  plenty  to  study 
the  landscape  and  chat  with  the  natives  on  the  farms 
and  in  the  villages.  There  was  always  a  mild  excite- 
ment in  passing  the  locks,  and  the  encounters  of  drivers 
on  the  towpath  sometimes  lent  spice  to  the  dull  stream 
of  conversation. 

At  Syracuse  my  great-uncle  commended  me  to  the 
care  of  the  coachman,  and  I  set  out  alone  on  the  last 
stage  of  my  journey.  The  first  night  we  spent  at  Cort- 
land, where,  in  the  early  evening,  I  fell  in  with  an  ardent 
politician  of  about  my  own  age,  who  was  dancing  about 
a  hickory  pole  just  erected  on  the  public  square,  with 
a  banner  inscribed  to  Polk  and  Dallas  flying  from  the 
top  of  it.    From  this  point  onward  my  attention  was 


22  RECOLLECTIONS 

attracted  to  the  hickory  poles  and  the  white-pine  poles, 
by  which  partisans  proclaimed  their  loyalties  in  the 
political  contest  then  so  hotly  waged.  Now  and  then  we 
came  upon  an  outdoor  assembly  listening  to  some  fer- 
vid orator,  arguing  for  "Polk  and  annexation,"  or  for 
"Clay  and  a  protective  tariff";  and  we  had  glimpses 
of  those  enormous  teams  of  oxen  by  which  each  party, 
gathering  at  the  hustings,  sought  to  symbolize  its 
strength.  This  was  the  first  political  campaign  whose 
incidents  I  remember,  and  the  proposed  annexation  of 
Texas,  with  the  probable  resulting  war,  gave  even  to  a 
juvenile  politician  some  cause  for  solicitude. 

For  it  was  in  this  very  year,  1844,  that  the  first  ef- 
fective political  organization  based  upon  opposition  to 
slavery  made  its  appearance  in  this  country.  There  had 
been,  a  few  weeks  before  this  date,  a  convention  at 
Buffalo  which  had  nominated  a  candidate  for  the  pre- 
sidency on  a  platform  which  declared  "that  human 
brotherhood  is  a  cardinal  principle  of  the  democracy  as 
well  as  of  pure  Christianity;  and  neither  the  political 
party  which  repudiates  it,  nor  the  political  system  which 
is  not  based  upon  it,  can  be  truly  democratic  nor  perma- 
nent." Thus  was  born  the  "  Liberty  Party,"  the  nucleus 
of  the  Republican  Party.  A  small  boy,  listening  to  the 
talk  of  men  on  the  decks  of  canal-boats  and  in  the  stage- 
coaches, was  made  aware  that  the  question  which  was 
disturbing  men's  minds  was  the  question  of  the  exten- 
sion of  slavery ;  that  Texas  was  wanted  by  the  people  of 
the  South  because  it  would  give  them  more  slave  terri- 
tory ;  and  that  the  whole  question  of  the  rightfulness 
of  slavery  was  thus  forcing  itself  upon  the  conscience 


FARM  LIFE  AND  SCHOOL  LIFE         23 

of  the  people.  The  small  boy  was  listening  to  the  first 
notes  of  that  "irrepressible  conflict "  which  was  to  rend 
the  nation  in  twain  and  deluge  the  land  in  blood. 

On  my  return  from  Massachusetts,  my  mother,  who 
had  been  married  again  and  was  living  in  the  ^'illage  of 
Owego,  thought  it  best  to  place  me  in  the  care  of  my 
uncle,  Ebenezer  Daniels,  on  the  farm  where  I  had  lived 
after  my  father's  death.  For  the  next  eight  years  that 
farm  was  my  home.  It  was  understood  that  I  was 
adopted  into  my  uncle's  family ;  that  he  was  to  give 
me  the  advantages  of  the  cormnon  school;  that  I  was 
to  work  for  him  upon  the  farm  until  I  was  twenty-one, 
and  that  I  should  then  receive  a  good  suit  of  clothes  and 
either  a  good  horse  or  one  hundred  dollars  in  money. 
Such  were  the  ordinary  terms  of  apprenticeship  on  which 
boys  in  those  days  were  received  into  farmers'  families. 

My  uncle  was  then  a  young  man,  under  thirty ;  he  had 
a  rather  stony  hill  farm  of  forty  acres  —  after\s'ard  in- 
creased to  eighty  —  on  the  banks  of  the  Little  Nanti- 
coke  Creek,  three  miles  east  of  Owego,  and  a  mile  north 
of  the  Susquehanna.  He  was  a  sturdy  figure,  a  little 
under  six  feet  in  height,  with  black  hair,  already  thin, 
and  blue  eyes,  a  broad  forehead,  and  a  fine,  strong, 
benignant  face.  He  had  had  but  the  most  meagre  edu- 
cational advantages ;  he  had  been  a  pupil  of  my  father 
in  the  district  school,  and  had  such  scant  knowledge  of 
the  three  R's  as  boys  could  get  in  three  or  four  winter 
terms.  But  the  first  of  the  three  R's  for  him  should  be 
writ  large.  A  Reader  he  was,  with  a  capital  letter ;  books 
were  the  one  recreation  and  solace  of  his  laborious  life. 
The  supply  of  them  was,  indeed,  limited ;  there  were  a 


24  RECOLLECTIONS 

few  in  the  house  that  had  descended  from  former  gen- 
erations, but  the  store  was  soon  exhausted.  We  had, 
however,  a  school  district  library,  furnished  at  that  time 
by  the  State  of  New  York  to  each  school  district  —  a 
most  humane  and  enlightened  provision.  The  district 
elected  a  librarian  at  the  annual  school  meeting,  and  the 
library  was  thus  located  in  one  of  the  farmhouses  near 
the  centre  of  the  district,  and  was  accessible  to  all  who 
chose  to  use  it.  Ours  was  but  a  limited  collection  —  per- 
haps less  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  volumes ;  and  there 
was  very  little  fiction  in  it,  and  no  poetry  at  all,  so  far  as 
I  can  now  remember ;  it  was  made  up  mostly  of  books 
of  history  and  travel.  Occasionally  a  few  new  volumes 
were  added.  This  library,  to  a  man  like  my  uncle,  was  a 
godsend ;  I  doubt  if  any  other  family  in  the  district  used 
it  half  as  freely  as  ours  did.  Besides,  we  had  access  to 
two  Sunday-school  libraries,  in  which  books  of  value 
were  sometimes  found;  and  the  New  York  "Observer" 
and  the  New  York  "  Weekly  Tribune  "  kept  us  somewhat 
informed  respecting  the  doings  of  both  sides  of  the 
greater  world. 

In  the  little  farmhouse  a  small  sitting-room  adjoined 
the  kitchen,  in  which  was  an  open  fireplace ;  and  one  of 
my  daUy  duties,  from  the  beginning  of  my  life  on  the 
farm,  was  to  fill  the  wood-box  every  winter  day  with 
fuel  for  the  evening  fire.  After  the  chores  were  done  and 
the  supper  was  cleared  away,  the  family  always  resorted 
to  this  room,  and  there  were  often  two  hours  for  reading 
before  our  early  bedtime.  My  uncle  was  the  reader  in 
the  earlier  years,  and  he  always  read  aloud,  sometimes 
by  the  light  of  pine-knots,  of  which  we  usually  had  a 


FARM  LIFE  AND  SCHOOL  LIFE         25 

good  supply,  but  most  often  by  a  tallow  dip  which  he 
held  close  to  the  page.  He  was  an  admirable  reader ;  of 
the  arts  of  the  elocutionist,  happily,  he  knew  nothing, 
but  he  easily  caught  the  author's  meaning,  and  inter- 
preted it  with  great  skill  and  accuracy.  His  voice  was 
mellow  and  musical,  he  was  sensitive  to  rhetorical 
beauty,  and  his  tones  grew  sonorous  or  tremulous  as  the 
lines  rose  to  passion  or  fell  to  pathos. 

Thus  we  had,  in  the  poor  little  farmhouse,  our  own 
nodes  ambrosianae,  with  the  firelight  from  the  open 
hearth  making  flickering  shadows  on  the  lowly  walls, 
and  our  minds  traveling  with  Taylor  up  the  Nile  or  with 
Hannibal  over  the  Alps.  My  memory  often  goes  back 
to  those  evenings  with  gratitude  for  the  kind  providence 
that  guarded  me  from  the  mental  debaucheries  of  sensa- 
tional fiction,  and  led  me  so  kindly  into  the  delights  of 
more  sober  literature.  Many  things,  mdeed,  I  missed, 
of  which  no  boy  ought  to  be  defrauded,  —  the  pageantry 
of  Scott,  the  romantic  adventure  of  Cooper:  these  did 
not  come  to  me  until  my  days  of  hero-worship  were 
past;  in  the  meantime,  however,  I  had  gained  something 
which  the  average  modern  boy,  with  whole  libraries  of 
fiction  open  to  him,  generally  fails  to  get. 

As  I  grew  older,  my  uncle  occasionally  drafted  me  into 
service  as  reader  for  a  part  of  the  evening,  and  in  that 
practice  I  learned  most  of  what  I  have  known  of  the  art 
of  oral  expression.  There  was  very  little  criticism  of  the 
performance ;  all  my  teacher  required  of  me  was  to  speak 
distinctly,  and  to  know  and  convey  the  meaning  of  the 
author.  A  beautiful  art  is  this,  the  art  of  reading ;  and 
not  as  much  cultivated,  I  fear,  in  these  days  as  in  the 


26  RECOLLECTIONS 

days  of  my  boyhood.  We  have  very  Httle  time  for  such 
employments ;  what  with  our  shows  and  our  social  func- 
tions, and  our  fraternities  and  sororities,  and  all  the  rest, 
few  families  ever  get  a  chance  to  spend  an  evening  to- 
gether, and  such  pleasures  as  those  with  which,  in  the 
plain  old  country  farmhouse,  we  were  fain  to  solace  our- 
selves, are  far  from  the  thoughts  of  most  of  our  contem- 
poraries. Yet  it  might  be  worth  while  to  try  to  recover 
such  a  lost  art  as  the  art  of  reading  aloud,  and  even  to 
find  or  furnish  occasion  for  it  in  the  family  life.  Per- 
haps, one  of  these  days,  it  may  be  the  fashion  to  enter- 
tain one  another  in  this  way.  Instead  of  installing  a 
talking-machine  in  a  corner  of  the  drawing-room,  and 
listening  to  uncanny  reproductions  of  other  people's 
voices  in  speech  or  song,  we  may  learn  to  find  a  higher 
pleasure  in  giving  fitting  and  natural  utterance,  by  our 
own  voices,  to  fair  fancies  and  kindling  thoughts,  pre- 
served for  us  in  the  great  literatures. 

The  life  into  which,  on  my  uncle's  farm,  I  was  now 
introduced,  was  by  no  means  a  life  of  ease  or  luxury.  It 
was  only  by  the  most  tireless  and  constant  labor,  early 
and  late,  in  which  every  member  of  the  family  was 
required  to  take  part,  that  we  were  able  to  win  from  the 
intractable  soil  the  means  of  livelihood,  and  to  meet  the 
payments  which  were  due  upon  the  land.  My  uncle  was 
a  man  of  prodigious  industry;  long  before  daylight  in 
the  winter  mornings  he  would  be  away  with  his  team 
to  the  woods  to  haul  saw-logs  to  the  mill  or  cord- wood 
to  the  village ;  all  the  year  round  he  wrought  with  tire- 
less patience,  and  he  expected  of  all  his  household  a 
similar  diligence.  At  once  certain  definite  tasks  and 


FARM  LIFE  AND  SCHOOL  LIFE         27 

responsibilities  were  assigned  to  me,  in  the  provision 
for  the  household  fires,  and  in  the  care  of  the  stock; 
gradually  these  burdens  were  increased.  Very  early  I 
was  initiated  into  all  the  manual  arts  then  practiced  by 
the  farmer ;  I  learned  to  use  the  axe  and  the  saw,  the 
hoe  and  the  spade  and  the  rake ;  the  scythe  and  the  plow 
and  the  grain  cradle  came  into  my  hands  as  soon  as  I 
was  strong  enough  to  use  them;  before  I  was  sixteen 
years  of  age  I  had  learned  to  do  all  the  kinds  of  work 
then  practiced  on  the  farm,  and  in  most  of  them  I  was 
able  to  do  a  man's  part.  The  labor  was  sometimes 
severe,  but  the  outdoor  life  was,  undoubtedly,  the  best 
possible  regimen  for  me.  \Mien  I  was  twelve  or  thirteen 
years  of  age  a  severe  cold  left  some  ominous  symptoms 
of  pulmonary  injury,  but  the  fresh-air  cure  was  mine, 
without  the  formality  of  a  prescription,  and  it  did  the 
business  for  me. 

For  schooling  I  had  the  advantages  of  the  district 
school,  which  stood  upon  the  corner  of  my  uncle's  farm, 
in  which  my  father  had  once  been  a  teacher  and  my 
mother  a  pupil.  The  building  was  a  plain  frame  struc- 
ture, into  which  fifty  or  sixty  boys  and  girls  were 
crowded  during  the  winter  term.  All  ages  were  repre- 
sented in  it:  young  men  and  women  of  eighteen  or 
twenty  and  little  children  of  five  or  six.  In  the  first  years 
of  my  attendance  there  were  no  classes,  except  in  read- 
ing and  spelling,  because  there  was  no  uniformity  of 
books;  each  pupil  brought  and  studied  the  aritlmietic 
or  geography  or  grammar  which  had  descended  to  him 
from  his  forbears;  the  people  deemed  themselves  too 
poor  to  purchase  new  books  for  their  children.   The 


28  RECOLLECTIONS 

teacher  came  to  each  pupil's  seat  every  day,  and  heard 
him  recite  what  he  had  learned,  giving  him  his  lesson  for 
the  following  day.  Eager  and  ambitious  pupils  could  go 
as  fast  as  they  chose ;  dull  ones  were  not  driven  beyond 
their  capacity.  Like  every  other  bad  system,  this  had 
the  advantages  of  its  defects. 

Our  writing-books  we  constructed  for  ourselves,  of 
foolscap  paper  folded  once  and  stitched  together,  a  sheet 
of  brown  paper  being  added  for  the  cover.  The  school- 
master "set  the  copy" ;  it  was  his  handwriting  that  we 
were  all  required  to  imitate.  One  of  the  chief  accom- 
plishments of  the  "master"  of  the  period  was  penman- 
ship. Another  was  skill  in  pen-making,  for  steel  pens  had 
not  appeared  in  that  locality ;  the  gray  goose-quill  was 
still  the  implement  of  letters,  and  the  master,  with  his 
sharp  penknife,  was  daily  called  to  mend  the  pens  of  the 
writers. 

I  have  described  what  was  true  of  the  first  year  or  two 
of  my  pupilage  in  this  country  school ;  but  some  time  in 
the  late  forties,  my  uncle,  who  was  the  school  trustee, 
had  the  great  good  fortune  to  secure  a  teacher  who  had 
ideas  about  education,  and  who  quickly  succeeded  in 
revolutionizing  the  methods  of  teaching.  From  this  time 
forward  this  country  district  school  offered  advantages 
of  no  mean  order.  After  my  eighth  summer  my  help  was 
needed  on  the  farm,  and  I  was  never  able  to  attend  the 
summer  term,  which  was  always  taught  by  a  woman. 
The  winter  term  lasted  never  more  than  four  months, 
beginning  with  November  and  ending  with  February; 
but  in  this  limited  time  I  was  able  to  get,  before  the  com- 
pletion of  my  sixteenth  year,  a  good  training  in  arith- 


FARM  LIFE  AND   SCHOOL  LIFE  29 

metic  (completing  Thomson's  Higher  Arithmetic),  an 
excellent  knowledge  of  geography,  a  thorough  drill  in 
English  grammar  (we  used  Goold  Brown's  Elementary- 
Grammar)  ;  a  fair  mastery  of  algebra,  through  quadratic 
equations,  with  daily  practice  in  "intellectual  algebra" ; 
some  insight  into  the  elements  of  physics,  as  given  in 
Parker's  Natural  Philosophy,  and  a  delightful  acquaint- 
ance with  Mitchel's  School  Astronomy.  Added  to  this 
was  some  weekly  practice  in  declamation  and  in  the 
writing  of  themes  —  "compositions,"  we  called  them. 
Most  of  this  was  gained  in  the  last  four  or  five  winters. 
Up  to  my  eleventh  or  twelfth  year  I  had  made  very  little 
progress.  It  would  seem  that  my  father  had  forced  the 
season  in  my  mental  development,  and  the  reaction 
came.  I  wanted  to  read  all  I  could  lay  my  hands  on,  but 
I  could  not  apply  my  mind  to  study.  But  the  teacher  to 
whom  I  have  referred,  after  some  discouraging  failures, 
succeeded  in  kindling  my  ambition.  My  debt  to  him  is 
greater  than  I  could  ever  hope  to  repay.  His  name  was 
Horace  Lee  Andrews ;  he  was  a  medical  student,  teach- 
ing winter  schools  to  meet  the  expenses  of  his  education ; 
he  graduated,  later,  in  medicine,  and  practiced  but  a 
few  years,  dying  very  young.  He  might  have  been  a 
good  physician ;  he  would  certainly  have  been  a  great 
teacher.  His  power  of  arousing  and  inspiring  students, 
of  appealing  to  all  that  was  best  in  them,  of  making 
fine  ideals  of  conduct  attractive  to  them,  was  quite 
exceptional.  He  found  me  a  listless  and  lazy  pupil; 
he  left  me  with  a  zest  for  study  and  a  firm  purpose  of 
self-improvement.  It  was  a  clear  case  of  conversion; 
and  when  any  one  tells  me  that  character  cannot  be 


30  RECOLLECTIONS 

changed  through  the  operation  of  spiritual  forces,  I  know 
better. 

I  am  disposed  to  believe  that  this  country  district 
school,  under  the  leadership  of  Horace  Andrews  and  of 
one  or  two  less  notable  successors,  must  have  been  of  a 
better  sort  than  the  average  of  those  days.  What  I  have 
recorded  concerning  my  own  work  before  I  was  sixteen 
(and  there  were  several  boys  and  girls  who  did  substan- 
tially the  same  work)  may  indicate  that,  with  all  our 
modern  pedagogical  methods,  we  are  not  getting  ahead 
much  faster  than  our  fathers  did.  The  output  of  our 
physical  machinery  has  vastly  increased  production; 
our  intellectual  machinery  has  made  no  such  astound- 
ing advances.  It  is  even  a  question  whether  the  pro- 
gress of  the  more  capable  pupils  is  not  often  retarded 
by  our  highly  graded  educational  machinery ;  whether 
there  is  not  a  tendency  to  level  down  to  the  dullest.  If 
I  had  been  compelled  to  travel  at  the  gait  of  the  mod- 
ern school  curriculum,  my  early  education  would  have 
amounted  to  very  little,  and  I  never  could  have  gone  to 
college. 

Life  in  this  rural  district  was,  for  the  most  part,  stren- 
uous and  toilsome ;  there  were  not  many  idlers,  and  no 
paupers.  Some  there  were  who  would  have  been  ready 
enough  to  live  upon  the  labor  of  their  neighbors,  but 
they  were  not  allowed  to  do  it ;  their  true  condition  and 
needs  were  too  well  known  to  permit  them  to  impose 
upon  us.  The  "ne'er-do-wells"  never  stay  in  the  coun- 
try ;  they  always  move  to  the  city.  It  always  amuses  me 
to  hear  charitable  people  exhorting  persons  of  this  class 
to  move  into  the  country.  For  the  industrious  poor  it 


FARM  LIFE  AND  SCHOOL  LIFE         31 

may  be  good  counsel,  but  not  for  those  whose  occupa- 
tion is  looking  for  work.  The  country  is  the  last  place 
in  the  world  for  them. 

We  had  our  diversions  and  festivities.  The  Little 
Nanticoke,  in  those  days,  was  well  stocked  with  fish, 
and  sometimes  a  "stent"  —  that  was  what  we  called  it 
—  could  be  worked  off  in  time  for  an  hour  or  two  of 
fishing  in  the  early  evening.  After  the  harvest  we  had 
our  berrying  parties,  and  sometimes,  in  the  autumn, 
our  husking  bees  and  apple-paring  bees.  Spelling- 
matches  between  adjoining  districts  were  not  uncom- 
mon. I  remember  very  well  one  evening  when  we  went 
over  to  the  "river  district,"  a  mile  away,  for  a  bout  with 
the  boys  and  girls  of  that  neighborhood.  I  distinctly 
recall  the  stalwart  figure  of  the  "master"  of  that  school, 
standing  in  the  middle  of  the  room  with  a  spelling-book 
in  one  hand  and  a  tallow  dip  in  the  other,  and  gallantly 
leading  his  host  to  ignominious  defeat.  "Frank"  Tracy 
we  called  him  then ;  he  has  since  been  Secretary  of  the 
Navy. 

Once,  in  the  last  winter  of  my  residence  in  this  dis- 
trict, our  school  contests  rose  to  the  dignity  of  a  debate. 
It  was  the  early  winter  of  1852,  and  the  reverberations 
of  the  great  discussion  in  Congress  over  the  compromise 
measures  of  1850  were  still  sounding  in  our  ears.  That 
debate  had  made  upon  my  own  mind  a  deep  impression. 
The  New  York  "Weekly  Tribune"  gave  us  fair  reports 
of  it ;  but  some  one  told  me  that  the  members  of  Congress 
would  send  me  their  speeches,  and  a  few  letters  to 
Washington  brought  from  Seward  and  Wade  and  Hale 
and  Giddings  and  others  copies  of  their  speeches,  which 


32  RECOLLECTIONS 

I  read  and  studied  with  the  deepest  interest.  The  great 
speeches  of  Clay  and  Webster  and  Benton  were  well 
reported  in  the  newspapers.  ^\Tien,  therefore,  a  debate 
on  the  repeal  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  was  proposed 
and  I  was  asked  to  lead  the  affirmative,  with  the  "mas- 
ter" as  the  leader  on  the  other  side,  I  was  quite  ready 
for  the  fray.  I  suppose  that  I  was  as  keenly  alive  to  the 
importance  of  that  contest,  in  a  little  country  school- 
house,  as  college  men  have  sometimes  been  over  a  'var- 
sity rowing-match  or  a  football  fight.  At  any  rate,  I 
went  into  training  for  it.  Every  morning,  for  three  or 
four  weeks,  I  was  up  as  early  as  four  o'clock,  digging 
into  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  conning  the 
undesirable  statute,  section  by  section,  getting  all  the 
light  I  could  from  every  quarter.  The  fact  that  my  side 
won  the  debate  did  not  signify  much ;  a  more  impor- 
tant fact,  to  me,  was  that  I  had  taken  a  strenuous  lesson 
in  forensics,  the  value  of  which  I  never  forgot. 

If  I  have  left  to  the  last  the  religious  phases  of  my 
life  upon  the  farm,  it  is  not  because  they  were  to  me  the 
least  significant  portions  of  my  experience.  Indeed,  I 
am  sure  that  while  nobody  who  knew  me  suspected  it, 
the  one  deepest  interest  of  my  life  through  all  that  period 
was  religion.  I  was  keenly  alive  to  all  the  good  things 
of  this  world ;  I  had  a  boy's  appetite  and  a  boy's  love 
of  play,  and  a  boy's  craving  for  companionship;  but 
underneath  it  all  was  an  increasing  craving  for  that 
spiritual  experience  of  which  I  heard  others  testifying, 
and  which  I  believed  to  be  the  supreme  good.  My  early 
childhood  had  been  bathed  in  an  atmosphere  of  piety ; 
every  memory  of  my  father  wore  the  halo  of  sainthood ; 


FARM  LIFE  AND  SCHOOL  LIFE         33 

and  in  my  uncle's  household  religion  was  a  vital  ele- 
ment. It  was  never  thrust  upon  me ;  my  personality 
was  respected,  perhaps,  too  carefully ;  but  it  was  com- 
mended to  me  in  conduct  whose  sincerity  I  never  could 
question. 

Nor  was  there  any  lack  of  church  privilege.  We  lived 
three  miles  from  the  village,  yet  I  dare  say  that  no 
family  connected  with  the  Presbyterian  church  in 
Owego  was  in  its  pew  as  many  Sundays  of  the  year  as 
ours.  Rain,  snow,  mud,  were  no  hindrances ;  we  went  to 
church  as  regularly  as  we  went  to  dinner.  The  limiber 
farm-wagon  carried  us  for  several  years ;  rough  boards 
laid  across  the  box,  and  cushioned  vnth  horse-blankets, 
furnished  our  chariot.  Later,  we  attained  to  the  luxury 
of  a  spring  wagon.  There  were  two  Sunday  services, 
separated  by  a  recess  of  an  hour  and  a  half,  during  which 
the  Sunday-school  held  its  session.  This  gave  us  a  little 
nooning  for  the  luncheon  which  we  brought  from  home, 
and  for  an  enlivening  stroll,  in  the  pleasant  weather, 
through  the  adjoining  graveyard.  I  could  have  passed 
an  examination,  magna  cum  laude,  on  those  epitaphs. 

I  will  not  deny  that  those  sermons  were  often  a  weari- 
ness of  the  flesh.  A  keen  theological  argument  would 
have  been  interesting,  but  it  was  largely  a  restatement 
of  platitudes ;  it  hardly  ever  touched  life  in  the  remot- 
est way.  Now  and  then  a  preacher  came  along  whose 
enthusiasm  kindled  me;  there  was  a  man  from  Bing- 
ham ton,  a  pale  and  slender  j^oung  preacher,  by  the  name 
of  Humphrey,  whose  occasional  appearance  in  our  pul- 
pit was  a  refreshment ;  I  would  have  walked  the  three 
miles,  on  the  stormiest  day,  to  hear  him.  But,  as  a  rule, 


34  RECOLLECTIONS 

the  tax  upon  the  attention  of  a  growing  boy  was  rather 
exorbitant ;  need  enough  was  there  of  the  delectable  dill 
and  the  consoling  caraway,  on  which  we  were  wont  to 
nibble,  to  keep  ourselves  awake. 

There  was  always  the  possibility,  too,  of  something 
really  rewarding.  The  choir,  in  that  village  church,  was 
better  than  the  ordinary  run  of  village  choirs ;  there  was 
one  soprano  voice  of  great  beauty,  and  the  little  chorus 
was  intelligently  led ;  so  that  when,  at  the  close  of  the 
sermon,  the  minister  sometimes  said,  "The  choir  will 
close  with  a  piece  of  their  own  selection,"  boys  who  had 
been  nodding  began  to  sit  up  and  listen.  I  suppose  that 
I  shall  never  hear  any  music  which  will  touch  me  quite 
as  deeply  as  some  of  those  old  anthems  did:  "How 
Lovely  is  Zion!"  "By  the  Rivers  of  Babylon,"  "When 
the  Worn  Spirit  wants  Repose."  I  have  n't  the  least 
idea  who  wrote  them ;  I  have  never  seen  the  music,  but 
the  melodies  haunt  me  yet. 

There  were  other  churches  in  the  village,  but  they  had 
no  more  dealings  with  one  another  than  the  Jews  had 
with  the  Samaritans.  Sectarian  jealousies  were  fierce; 
ministers  of  the  different  churches  were  hardly  on 
speaking  terms ;  an  exchange  of  pulpits  was  a  thing  never 
heard  of.  While,  therefore,  I  had  as  large  an  experience 
of  church-going  in  my  boyhood  as  most  boys  can  recall, 
I  cannot  lay  my  hand  on  my  heart  and  say  that  the 
church-going  helped  me  to  solve  my  religious  problems. 
In  fact,  it  made  those  problems  more  and  more  tangled 
and  troublesome.  I  wanted  to  find  my  way  into  the 
peace  of  God,  into  the  assurance  of  his  friendship,  and 
that  I  could  not  do.  I  understood  that  I,  with  all  the 


FARM  LIFE  AND  SCHOOL  LIFE         35 

rest  of  mankind,  had  "by  the  fall  lost  communion  with 
God  and  was  under  his  wrath  and  curse,  and  so  made 
liable  to  all  the  miseries  of  this  life,  to  death  itself  and 
the  pains  of  hell  forever."  Of  the  exact  truth  of  this 
statement  I  had  not  the  shadow  of  doubt.  But  I  under- 
stood that  there  was  a  way  by  which  I  could  escape  from 
this  curse  and  regain  this  lost  communion.  That  was 
the  one  thing,  above  all  others,  that  I  wanted.  I  would 
gladly  have  exchanged  for  it  not  only  every  sinful  plea- 
sure, but  all  the  pleasures  that  were  not  sinful.  It  will 
hardly  be  credited  to-day,  but  I  felt  that  being  a  Chris- 
tian would  mean,  for  me,  giving  up  all  my  boyish  sports, 
—  ball-playing,  coasting,  fishing ;  and  I  was  more  than 
ready  to  make  that  sacrifice.  So  I  kept  trying,  for  years, 
to  gain  that  assurance  of  the  favor  of  God  of  which  I 
heard  people  talking,  and  which,  I  felt  sure,  some  of 
them  must  possess.  I  listened,  in  prayer  meeting  and 
revival  meeting,  to  what  they  said  about  it;  I  noted 
with  the  greatest  care  the  steps  that  must  be  taken,  and 
I  tried  to  do  just  what  I  was  told  to  do.  I  was  to  "give 
myself  away,"  in  a  serious  and  complete  self-dedication. 
I  suppose  that  I  shall  be  far  within  the  truth  if  I  say  that 
I  tried  to  do  that,  a  thousand  times.  But  I  understood 
that  when  I  had  done  it,  properly,  I  should  have  an 
immediate  knowledge  of  the  fact  that  it  had  been 
properly  done ;  some  evidence  in  my  consciousness  that 
could  not  be  mistaken ;  that  a  light  would  break  in,  or  a 
burden  roll  off,  or  that  some  other  emotional  or  ecstatic 
experience  would  supervene;  and  when  nothing  of  the 
kind  occurred,  the  inevitable  conclusion  was  that  my 
effort  had  been  fruitless ;  that  I  had  failed  to  commend 


36  RECOLLECTIONS 

myself  to  the  favor  of  God,  and  was  still  under  his  wrath 
and  curse.  It  is  not  a  good  thing  for  any  well-meaning 
soul  to  be  left  in  that  predicament.  To  feel  that,  in  spite 
of  your  best  endeavors,  you  are  an  alien  and  an  outcast 
from  the  family  of  God  is  not  encouraging  to  vu'tue ;  it 
tends  to  carelessness  and  irreverence.  I  have  often  won- 
dered, in  later  years,  that  my  faith  did  not  give  way; 
that  I  did  not  become  an  atheist.  It  was  the  memory 
of  my  father,  and  the  consistent  piety  of  my  uncle,  I 
suppose,  which  made  that  impossible.  But  that  little 
unplastered  room  under  the  rafters  in  the  old  farmhouse, 
where  I  lay  so  many  nights,  when  the  house  was  still, 
looking  out  through  the  casement  upon  the  unpitying 
stars,  has  a  story  to  tell  of  a  soul  in  great  perplexity 
and  trouble  because  it  could  not  find  God. 

All  this  time  I  was  studying  the  Bible  diligently.  We 
read  the  whole  book  through,  chapter  by  chapter,  at 
family  worship  four  or  five  times  while  I  was  living  on 
the  farm,  and  the  reading  was  not  wearisome  to  me. 
Once  we  waded  through  the  whole  list  of  names  in  the 
Chronicles ;  for  what  reason  I  am  not  clear,  unless  it  may 
have  been  that  of  a  genial  friend  of  mine  who  once  con- 
fessed to  me  that  he  had  read  them  all,  because,  he  said, 
"It  occurred  to  me  that  I  might  meet  one  of  those  old 
chaps  in  heaven  some  day,  and  it  would  be  embarrassing 
to  have  to  own  that  I  had  never  heard  of  him." 

Besides  the  daily  Bible  reading,  my  Biblical  educa- 
tion was  well  advanced  by  the  memorizing,  as  Sunday- 
school  lessons,  of  all  the  historical  portions  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  many  of  the  Bible  stories  of  the  Old 
Testament.  And  that  nothing  might  be  wanting  to  my 


FARM  LIFE  AND   SCHOOL  LIFE         37 

theological  outfit,  I  committed  to  memory  also  the 
whole  of  the  Shorter  Catechism  of  the  Westminster 
divines. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  convey  to  most  of  those  who 
will  read  these  pages  any  adequate  sense  of  the  positive- 
ness  with  which  those  doctrines  were  held  in  the  circle 
in  which  my  life  was  spent.  We  did  not  admit  to  our- 
selves the  possibility  of  any  error  in  their  statement,  and 
we  guarded  ourselves  carefully  against  any  influences 
which  would  tend  to  weaken  our  hold  upon  them.  Alien 
from  the  commonwealth  of  the  true  Israel  as  I  believed 
myself  to  be,  I  still  held  fast  to  the  orthodox  creed, 
and  regarded  with  keen  disapprobation  any  one  who 
challenged  it.  A  preacher  of  the  Universalist  sect  made 
his  appearance  in  our  neighborhood,  and  two  or  three 
families  became  known  as  his  followers;  we  tried  to 
keep  treating  them  neighborly,  but  it  went  hard  to  do 
it ;  we  felt  that  a  great  gulf  had  been  fLxed  between  us 
and  them.  There  was  a  funeral  in  one  of  these  families, 
and  the  young  Universalist  minister  came  to  preach 
the  funeral  sermon;  we  attended  the  funeral,  but  we 
remained  outside  the  house,  that  we  might  not  hear  the 
dangerous  doctrine.  Shortly  after  this  we  began  afresh 
the  reading,  by  course,  of  the  New  Testament  at  family 
worship;  and  I  followed  the  reading,  pencil  in  hand, 
through  the  entire  New  Testament,  marking  the  texts 
which  in  my  judgment  contradicted  the  Universalist 
doctrine. 

I  am  careful  to  relate  these  circumstances  because  I 
wish  to  make  it  clear  that  my  diflSculty  in  finding  the 
solution  of  my  problem  of  personal  religion  was  not  due 


38  RECOLLECTIONS 

to  any  heretical  tendencies.  In  fact,  it  was  due  partly 
to  the  rigidity  with  which  I  held  the  traditional  beliefs, 
and  partly  to  the  misleading  notion  that  no  one  could 
have  any  assurance  of  the  divine  favor  which  was  not 
signahzed  by  some  marked  and  easily  recognizable  emo- 
tional experience.  It  was  not  until  my  eighteenth  year 
that  a  clear-headed  minister  lifted  me  out  of  this  pit, 
and  made  me  see  that  it  was  perfectly  safe  to  trust  the 
Heavenly  Father's  love  for  me  and  walk  straight  on 
in  the  ways  of  service,  waiting  for  no  raptures,  but 
doing  his  will  as  best  I  knew  it,  and  confiding  in  his 
friendship. 

I  have  told  this  history  because  it  helps  to  illustrate 
the  changes  which  have  taken  place  within  the  last  sixty 
years  in  our  conceptions  of  what  is  essential  in  religious 
experience.  Such  hopeless  endeavors  to  find  peace  in 
believing  were  by  no  means  rare  in  my  younger  days. 
When  my  ministry  began  I  found  scores  of  men  and  wo- 
men who  were  living  blameless  lives,  and  wanted  to  be 
the  friends  of  God,  but  who  had  given  it  up  as  an  impos- 
sibility. They  had  tried,  over  and  over,  and  had  always 
failed,  and  they  knew  that  this  felicity  was  not  for  them. 
It  has  been  a  good  part  of  my  work  as  a  Christian 
teacher  to  get  people  out  of  that  slough  of  despond ;  and 
those  who  have  read  the  little  book  entitled  ''Being  a 
Christian:  What  it  Means  and  How  to  Begin"  will  find 
in  these  pages  the  reason  why  it  was  written.  I  some- 
times hear  people  desiderating  the  type  of  religious 
experience  which  was  common  in  former  days.  It  was 
more  intense,  more  fervid,  more  self-centred ;  but  on  the 
whole,  I  do  not  think  that  we  should  wisely  seek  to 


I 


FARM  LIFE  AND  SCHOOL  LIFE         39 

restore  it.  It  cannot  be  good  for  any  human  soul  to  be 
required  or  permitted  to  maintain  the  attitude  before 
the  Being  whom  he  calls  God  and  worships,  which  was 
the  only  possible  attitude  for  me  for  ten  years  of  my 
life.  And  one  who  has  come  to  believe  that  religion  is 
summed  up  in  the  word  Friendship — that  it  is  just 
being  friends  with  the  Father  above  and  the  brother 
by  our  side  —  often  looks  back  with  a  pang  to  the  time 
when  such  a  conception,  if  it  could  have  reached  him, 
would  have  lifted  a  great  load  from  his  heart  and  filled 
the  world  with  beauty. 


CHAPTER  III 

VILLAGE   LIFE   AND  APPRENTICESHIP 

Beneath  the  shadow  of  dawn's  aerial  cope, 
With  eyes  enkindled  as  the  sun's  own  sphere, 
Hope  from  the  front  of  youth  in  godlike  cheer 

Looks  Godward,  past  the  shades  where  blind  men  grope 

Round  the  dark  door  that  prayers  nor  dreams  can  ope, 
And  makes  for  joy  the  very  darkness  dear 
That  gives  her  wide  wings  play ;  nor  dreams  that  fear 

At  noon  may  rise  and  pierce  the  heart  of  hope. 

Algernon  Charles  Swinburne. 

I  HAVE  explained  that  the  farm  was  to  have  been  my 
home  until  my  majority.  For  the  fact  that  it  was  not  so, 
my  uncle  was  mainly  responsible.  It  was  he  who  had 
kindled  in  me  other  ambitions.  By  the  time  I  was  six- 
teen years  of  age  he  became  convinced  that  my  aptitudes 
were  leading  me  in  other  directions,  and  it  was  his  own 
proposition  that  I  seek  for  work  in  which  they  could 
find  development.  My  judgment  welcomed  his  counsel, 
but  my  heart  shrank  from  it ;  I  could  not  easily  turn 
my  back  upon  a  home  which,  with  all  its  hardships,  had 
been  very  dear.  Nor  had  I  any  definite  plans  of  study : 
I  had  dreamed  of  the  law ;  and  I  tried  to  find  a  place  in  a 
lawyer's  office  where  I  might  support  myself  by  copying 
and  have  time  for  reading,  but  no  such  opening  could  be 
found.  Finally,  one  day,  my  uncle  returned  from  the 
village  with  the  tidings  that  the  editor  and  publisher  of 
the  Owego  "Gazette"  wanted  a  boy,  and  that  I  could 


VILLAGE  LIFE  AND  APPRENTICESHIP      41 

find  occupation  there.  I  sought  that  place,  and  was  soon 
installed  as  a  printer's  apprentice. 

It  was  a  heavy  heart  that  I  carried  away  from  the 
farmhouse,  with  the  little  tnmk  that  held  my  few  be- 
longings, and  the  unpainted  writing-desk  which,  on 
rainy  days,  I  had  constructed  with  my  own  hands.  The 
homely  picture,  "Breaking  Home  Ties,"  which  touched 
so  many  hearts  at  the  Chicago  Exposition,  tells  a  story 
which  has  often  been  repeated. 

My  new  home  was  to  be  with  my  employer,  the  editor 
and  owner  of  the  local  Democratic  journal,  and  a  politi- 
cian of  considerable  influence  in  his  party.  One  window, 
with  three  small  panes  of  glass,  under  the  eaves,  fur- 
nished all  the  light  for  my  httle  bedroom ;  but  I  had  the 
freedom  of  the  kitchen,  and  a  place  at  the  family  table. 
The  term  of  my  apprenticeship  was  to  be  four  years, 
and  my  compensation  for  the  successive  years,  in  addi- 
tion to  my  board  and  washing,  was  to  be  thirty,  forty, 
sixty,  and  one  hundred  dollars.  This  was  to  suffice  for 
clothing  and  for  spcnding-money. 

The  removal  from  the  comparative  solitude  of  the 
farm  to  the  bustle  and  stir  of  a  smart  county  seat,  with 
five  or  six  thousand  inhabitants,  was  an  event  of  much 
significance  in  my  life.  Owego  had  been  known  to  me 
for  a  decade,  and  I  did  not  feel  myself  a  stranger,  but 
there  was  something  very  stimulating  to  the  mind  of 
the  boy  in  this  new  contact  with  the  life  of  the  world. 

It  is  easier  for  me  than  for  most  of  my  fellow  citizens 
to  reproduce  the  scenes  of  my  youth ;  for  this  old  home 
of  mine  has  changed  less,  during  the  past  sixty  years, 
than  most  American  towns.  Owego  was  a  beautiful  vil- 


42  RECOLLECTIONS 

lage  in  my  boyhood ;  it  is  fresher  and  fairer  now  than  it 
was  then,  but  it  is  no  larger.  It  has  kept  its  old  features 
and  its  old  character ;  it  is  quite  conscious  of  its  loveli- 
ness, but  it  is  not  ambitious  to  become  a  metropolis ;  it 
sits  there,  demurely,  on  the  banks  of  the  most  beautiful 
river  in  the  world,  and  rejoices  in  the  strength  of  its 
guarding  hills  and  the  peace  of  its  slumbering  meadows. 
The  clatter  and  rush  of  New  York  and  Chicago  seem  very 
far  away,  and  there  are  few  communities  of  equal  popu- 
lation in  which  the  pleasures  of  the  simple  life  are  more 
accessible. 

In  my  boyhood  Owego  was  sometimes  shyly  adver- 
tised as  a  haunt  of  the  muses.  N.  P.  Willis  had  his  home 
there,  —  Glenmary ;  it  was  a  rustic  cottage  embowered 
in  trees,  just  outside  the  village ;  near  his  door  was  the 
bridge  over  a  ravine  which  gave  title  to  his  "  Letters  from 
under  a  Bridge."  One  or  two  members  of  the  sometime 
famous  artist  family  of  Thompson  also  lived  and  painted 
there ;  the  Susquehanna  furnished  them  some  charming 
landscapes.  A  little  coterie  of  young  men  were  practicing 
with  their  pens;  sketches,  poems,  stories  in  the  local 
papers,  and  elsewhere,  were  much  talked  about ;  there 
was  quite  a  cult  of  Indian  tradition.  All  this  was  highly 
exciting  to  a  youth  whose  fingers  had  begun  to  tingle 
with  the  pruritus  scribendi.  So  I  took  up  my  work  in  the 
printing-office  with  something  other  than  the  handicraft 
in  sight.  Perhaps  Benjamin  Franklin's  gateway  into 
letters  was  the  best  one  open  to  me. 

It  was  not,  however,  to  literature  that  I  was  now  ap- 
prenticed, but  to  a  manual  trade  which  gave  me  plenty 
of  drudgery,  and  left  in  me,  when  the  day's  task  was 


VILLAGE  LIFE  AND  APPRENTICESHIP      43 

done,  small  impulse  to  woo  the  muses.  The  last  comer 
in  the  printing-office  had  all  the  menial  work  to  do,  and 
there  was  enough  of  it.  We  had  no  power  press;  cards 
and  circulars,  as  well  as  posters  and  newspapers,  were 
all  worked  off  on  an  old-fashioned  Washington  hand- 
press  ;  and  a  large  part  of  every  day  was  apt  to  be  spent 
in  the  occupation  of  the  roller-boy.  Furnishing  the  fires, 
sweeping  the  office,  cleaning  the  forms  of  type,  and  run- 
ning on  errands  gave  me  exercise  enough.  But  I  was 
also  furnished  with  a  "stick"  and  a  "rule"  and  given  a 
chance  to  "work  at  the  case,"  and  this  business  of  type 
composition  and  distribution  speedily  became  interest- 
ing to  me.  It  was  manual  labor,  but  it  was  manual  labor 
"  affected,"  as  the  jurists  say,  with  an  intellectual  qual- 
ity, or  interest,  as  no  other  work  had  been  to  which  I  had 
set  my  hands.  The  study  of  language  had  always  had  a 
fascination  for  me,  and  we  were  dealing  here  with  the 
physical  framework  of  language,  and  all  the  technique 
of  the  types  was  significant.  The  artistic  side  of  the  work 
also  attracted  me ;  I  liked  to  experiment  with  display 
type,  and  to  study  pleasing  effects  in  cards  and  title- 
pages  and  advertisements. 

A  country  printing-office,  in  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  offered  a  large  opportunity  for  the  study 
of  human  nature.  The  doings  and  the  misdoings  of  the 
community  were  reported  in  it ;  it  was  the  clearing-house 
of  political  and  social  gossip ;  it  was  the  rendezvous  of 
local  politicians;  and  a  large  share  of  the  subscribers, 
from  town  and  country,  dropped  in  to  pay  their  sub- 
scriptions and  have  a  chat  with  the  editor  or  his  assist- 
ant.  All  kinds  of  causes  sought  the  advocacy  of  the 


44  RECOLLECTIONS 

paper ;  all  sorts  of  cranks  demanded  a  hearing ;  advice  of 
every  description  was  sought  and  volunteered,  and  per- 
sonal grievances  and  bereavements  were  always  knock- 
ing for  admission  to  its  columns.  There  were  few  phases 
of  life  or  types  of  character  with  which  the  country 
newspaper  did  not  come  in  contact.  If  any  one  wishes 
to  know  what  manner  of  life  it  was,  let  him  read  Mr. 
Howells's  delightful  sketch  of  his  own  experience  in  his 
father's  office,  in  Jefferson,  Ohio.  The  years  of  his  ap- 
prenticeship were  the  very  years  when  I  was  learning 
my  trade  in  Owego;  the  two  communities  were  much 
alike,  and  the  story,  as  he  tells  it,  brought  vividly  home 
to  me  all  the  phases  of  my  life  as  a  printer's  boy. 

It  was  not  many  months  after  my  entrance  upon  this 
novitiate  that  I  ventured,  one  day,  to  leave  upon  the 
editor's  table  a  more  or  less  connected  melange  of  local 
news  and  hits  and  comments,  a  column  or  more  in 
length.  In  a  few  minutes  he  brought  it  out  to  me,  and 
bade  me  put  it  in  type.  From  that  time  onward  I  was 
encouraged  to  use  my  pen  whenever  I  preferred  that  to 
the  composing-stick,  and  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
local  work  fell  into  my  hands. 

I  have  spoken  of  politics  as  one  of  the  chief  interests 
of  the  newspaper  office,  but  the  politics  of  that  period 
were  not  of  an  inspiring  sort.  The  political  prejudice 
which  I  had  inherited  was  for  the  Whig  Party,  and  when 
my  uncle  left  me  in  the  sanctum  of  the  Democratic 
editor  he  said  to  him,  "You'll  never  make  a  Democrat 
of  him."  But  there  was  not,  in  those  days,  in  either 
party  much  to  inspire  the  enthusiasm  of  a  young  ideal- 
ist. When  I  entered  the  office  the  campaign  of  1852  was 


VILLAGE  LIFE  AND  APPRENTICESHIP      45 

drawing  to  its  close;  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  a  less 
vital  issue  has  ever  divided  political  parties  in  this  coun- 
try than  that  over  which  the  followers  of  Franklin  Pierce 
and  General  Winfield  Scott  were  divided.  The  com- 
promise measures  of  1850  were  supposed  to  have  set- 
tled the  slavery  question  for  all  time,  and  both  of  the 
old  parties,  eager  to  hold  on  to  their  southern  constitu- 
encies, were  emphasizing  their  loyalty  to  the  terms  of 
that  settlement.  Both  of  them  were  exhausting  their 
rhetoric  in  their  asseverations  that  what  had  been  done 
in  that  compromise  could  never,  no  never,  be  undone. 
And  both  of  them  took  pains  to  specify  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law  as  one  of  the  terms  of  that  compact  which 
must  not  be  disturbed. 

But  this  was  just  where  the  shoe  was  pinching.  It  had 
gone  hard  with  many  of  the  northern  people  to  consent 
to  that  provision ;  not  a  few  of  the  more  intelligent  and 
enterprising  slaves  had  escaped  from  their  masters,  and 
were  living  inoffensive  and  industrious  lives  in  northern 
communities;  most  of  their  neighbors  were  glad  that 
they  had  got  away,  and  were  in  no  mood  to  help  in  send- 
ing them  back.  The  agitation  of  the  abolitionists,  the 
discussions  provoked  by  the  compromise  measures  them- 
selves, above  all,  the  powerful  arraignment  of  the  sys- 
tem in  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  had  kindled  in  the  minds 
of  the  people  of  the  North  a  strong  sense  of  the  essen- 
tial wrong  of  slavery ;  and  most  of  them  revolted  at  the 
thought  of  rebinding  its  chains  on  any  who  had  broken 
them.  The  law  which  commanded  them  to  assist  in  this 
business,  and  made  it  a  crime  for  them  to  refuse,  was  a 
law  for  which  they  could  have  no  respect.  Most  of  them 


46  RECOLLECTIONS 

felt  that  because  it  was  the  law  of  the  land  they  must 
not  resist  it,  but  obey  it  they  would  not;  they  would 
honor  it  by  suffering  its  penalty. 

Certainly  it  was  dubious  policy  for  the  slave-owners 
to  press  the  enforcement  of  a  law  like  this  upon  the 
people  of  the  North ;  they  would  have  consulted  their 
own  interest  if  they  had  forborne  to  exact  the  poimd  of 
flesh  which  the  contract  awarded  them.  But  there  had 
been,  in  many  sections,  aggravating  and  heart-rending 
instances  of  the  enforcement  of  this  law;  and  the 
conscience  of  the  North  was  beginning  to  testify  impa- 
tiently against  it. 

When,  therefore,  the  two  great  parties,  ignoring  this 
uprising  of  the  moral  sense  of  the  nation,  competed  with 
each  other  for  the  southern  vote,  by  insisting,  in  their 
platforms,  that  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  must  be  en- 
forced, there  were  not  a  few  who  were  ready  to  cry,  "A 
plague  o'  both  your  houses,"  and  to  demand  some  new 
alignments  of  the  political  forces  to  meet  the  new  issues. 

It  is  interesting  now  to  recall  the  growth  of  the  anti- 
slavery  sentiment.  The  rapidity  of  this  movement  was 
something  phenomenal.  I  am  sure  that  nobody  thought 
so  then ;  we  all  felt  that  the  mills  of  the  gods  were  grind- 
ing as  slowly  as  is  their  wont ;  we  were  often  crying  out, 
"How  long,  0  Lord,  how  long!"  But  we  can  see  now, 
when  we  look  back  and  count  the  years,  that  opinion 
was  moving  forward  at  a  prodigious  speed. 

When  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century 
began,  the  anti-slavery  sentiment  of  the  country  was 
almost  a  negligible  quantity.  It  was  only  a  year  or  two 
before  this  that  the  young  minister  of  our  Presbyterian 


VILLAGE  LIFE  AND  APPRENTICESHIP      47 

church  ventured,  one  day,  to  pray  that  we  might  "re- 
member our  brethren  in  bonds,  as  bound  with  them." 
I  well  recollect  how  the  faces  of  some  of  the  elders, 
standing  in  prayer  time,  grew  red  as  they  listened  to  the 
petition.  It  looked  as  though  he  must  be  an  abolition- 
ist. Called  to  account,  he  failed  to  clear  himself  of  the 
imputation,  and  he  had  to  go.  We  wanted  no  such  in- 
cendiary praying  as  that  in  our  pulpit.  That  was  a  fair 
sample  of  the  ruling  sentiment  of  the  most  respectable 
classes  of  the  North  as  late  as  1850.  Abolitionists  were 
a  kind  of  vermin.  The  slaves  were  better  off  where  they 
were.  Were  they  not  fulfilling  the  divine  decree?  How 
about  Canaan?  Were  not  the  negroes  his  descendants, 
and  had  it  not  been  said  of  him,  "A  servant  of  servants 
he  shall  be  unto  his  brethren"?  And  what  would  be- 
come of  them  if  they  were  set  free?  Did  we  want  them 
overrunning  the  North?  This  was  the  moral  plane  on 
which  the  thoughts  of  most  of  us  were  ranging  through 
the  second  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century.  But  be- 
fore we  were  aware  of  it,  a  new  feeling  had  begun  to  per- 
vade the  community.  It  came,  as  the  spring  comes  in 
the  high  latitudes,  almost  without  premonition.  In  the 
midst  of  this  languid  campaign  of  1852,  the  conviction 
was  deepening  that  slavery  had  got  both  of  the  great 
parties  manacled  and  muzzled,  and  that  the  time  had 
come  to  put  an  end  to  slavery.  But  consider  that  it  was 
only  eight  years  after  this  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
elected,  on  a  platform  which  promised  that  there  should 
be  no  more  slave  states.  Can  any  one  estimate  the  dis- 
tance which  public  opinion  traveled  between  1852  and 
1860?  The  psychological  change  in  the  mind  of  the  na- 


48  RECOLLECTIONS 

tion  is  something  prodigious.  When  one  recalls  the  sen- 
timents and  judgments  which  were  finding  expression 
in  the  press  and  the  pulpit  and  in  private  conversa- 
tion in  the  campaign  of  1852,  and  compares  them  with 
the  utterances  which  had  come  to  be  habitual  in  the 
autumn  of  1860,  he  gets  a  startling  impression  of  the 
possibility  of  change  in  a  democracy.  One  who  has 
lived  through  such  a  renaissance  as  that  is  prepared  to 
believe  that  while  "the  good  can  well  afford  to  wait," 
it  is  not  always  doomed  to  long  delay.  There  are  days 
when  "the  dawn  comes  up  like  thunder." 

What  set  the  car  of  progress  spinning  "down  the  ring- 
ing grooves  of  change"  was  the  repeal,  in  1854,  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise.  It  was  the  astute  and  masterful 
Douglas  who  was  responsible  for  that.  He  wanted  to  be 
President,  and  it  was  plain  that  since  the  South  was  in 
the  saddle,  his  only  hope  of  gratifying  his  ambition  was 
to  make  himself  very  serviceable  to  the  South.  The  bill 
admitting  Missouri  to  the  Union  as  a  slave  state  had  ex- 
pressly provided  that  slavery  should  be  forever  excluded 
from  the  territory  west  of  Missouri  and  north  of  the  par- 
allel which  constituted  its  southern  boundary.  That  was 
a  solemn  compact.  Mr,  Douglas's  proposition  to  repeal 
it,  and  permit  the  people  of  those  territories  to  establish 
slavery  in  them,  if  they  chose  to  do  so,  was  a  most  fla- 
grant repudiation  of  a  pledge  which  ought  to  have  been 
held  sacred.  As  President  Woodrow  Wilson,  himself  a 
southern  man,  has  testified:  "The  healing  work  of  two 
generations  of  statesmen  was  destroyed  at  a  stroke. 
...  It  was,  in  fact,  matter  of  revolution." 
,    If,  at  this  distance,  such  seems  to  a  southern  historian 


VILLAGE  LIFE  AND  APPRENTICESHIP      49 

to  have  been  the  nature  of  this  transaction,  it  can  hardly 
be  wondered  at  that  the  indignation  of  the  North  was 
kindled  by  it.  At  any  rate,  the  North  was  up  in  arms. 
The  temper  of  the  time  is  well  reflected  in  an  edito- 
rial which  appeared  in  the  Springfield  (Massachusetts) 
"Republican,"  on  February  8,  1854.  The  "Republi- 
can" had  supported  the  Compromise  of  1850,  and  had 
sharply  reproved  the  popular  uprisings  by  which  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law  was  set  at  naught.  "The  North," 
said  this  witness,  "had  acquiesced  in  these  compro- 
mises ;  it  sustained  them  and  abided  by  them.  But  the 
South  and  its  northern  political  allies  have  broken 
the  peace  of  the  country.  They  make  fresh  and  mon- 
strous demands.  These  demands  will  arouse  the  whole 
nation ;  they  will  widen  and  deepen  the  anti-slavery  feel- 
ing of  the  country  as  no  other  conceivable  proposition 
could.  The  signs  are  unmistakable.  No  mere  party  or 
faction  will  array  itself  against  the  Nebraska  scheme. 
The  whole  people  are  against  it.  The  moral  force  of  the 
North,  the  influence,  the  learning,  the  wealth,  and  the 
votes  of  the  North  are  against  it,  and  will  make  them- 
selves effectively  heard,  ere  the  agitation,  now  reopened 
by  the  insanity  of  the  slave-holding  interest,  and  in 
behalf  of  the  schemes  of  ambitious  partisans,  shall  have 
ceased.  Tlie  South  and  its  allies  have  sown  the  wind, — 
will  they  not  reap  the  whirlwind  f" 

We  were  not,  even  in  Owego,  so  far  from  the  madding 
crowd  that  its  tumult  did  not  reach  our  ears.  Our  own 
representative  in  Congress  voted  for  the  Nebraska  Bill. 
A  protest  was  served  on  him,  but  he  ignored  it  and  fol- 
lowed his  party  leader.  The  popular  wrath  broke  out 


50  RECOLLECTIONS 

in  an  indignation  meeting,  at  which  "Frank"  Tracy, 
erstwhile  the  schoolmaster  of  the  "river  district,"  but 
now  a  promising  young  lawyer  in  the  village,  made  one 
of  the  principal  speeches,  urging  that  the  time  had  come 
for  the  formation  of  a  new  party^to  resist  the  extension 
of  slavery.  I  reported  that  meeting  for  the  "Gazette," 
and  I  fear  that  the  report  was  somewhat  irreverent.  For 
reform,  in  its  incipient  stages,  is  wont  to  bring  together 
a  fine  assortment  of  people  with  wheels  in  their  heads, 
and  this  assembly  had  its  humorous  aspects.  But  it  was 
a  very  serious  purpose,  after  all,  that  found  expression 
in  it ;  the  conflagration  which  Mr.  Douglas  had  kindled 
on  the  prairies  of  Kansas  was  sweeping  over  the  land. 
Political  issues,  however,  about  this  time,  fell  into  a 
very  complicated  condition.  Reform  was  the  word  of 
the  hour,  but  reform  had  many  irons  in  the  fire.  The 
temperance  issue  had  invaded  politics.  Maine  had 
enacted  her  prohibitory  law  in  1851,  and  Vermont  and 
Massachusetts  had  followed  her  lead  in  1852 ;  New  York 
was  getting  ready  to  repeat  the  experiment.  In  the  sum- 
mer of  1852,  before  I  left  the  farm,  my  uncle  and  I  came 
to  the  village  one  day  to  hear  a  rousing  speech  by  Neal 
Dow  on  the  public  square.  His  fluent  and  fervid  rhetoric 
and  his  impassioned  appeal  made  a  strong  impression 
on  my  mind.  No  prohibition  party  had  been  organized 
in  New  York,  but  the  champions  of  prohibition  were 
learning  to  act  together ;  they  often  held  the  balance  of 
power,  and  used  it  effectively  in  procuring  nominations 
and  carrying  elections.  The  order  of  Good  Templars  had 
sprung  into  existence  in  central  New  York  and  was 
spreading  rapidly ;  soon  after  my  eighteenth  birthday  I 


VILLAGE  LIFE  AND  APPRENTICESHIP      51 

became  a  member  of  the  local  lodge  and  was  made  secre- 
tary, conducting  the  correspondence  with  other  lodges 
of  the  country,  by  means  of  which  we  joined  our  forces 
for  the  fall  campaign  of  1854.  Our  candidate  for  the 
legislature  was  elected,  and  he  voted,  the  next  winter, 
for  the  prohibitory  law  which,  for  a  year  or  more,  had 
a  name  to  live  on  the  New  York  statute-book. 

Thus  began,  at  an  early  day,  my  apprenticeship  to 
practical  politics.  There  was  keen  satisfaction  in  playing 
the  game ;  it  was  good  to  be  in  it,  and  to  know  that  you 
were  helping  to  bring  things  to  pass.  I  have  not  forgot- 
ten the  gratification  I  felt  when,  at  two  or  three  o'clock 
of  the  morning  after  election,  after  a  ride  of  twenty-four 
miles  through  the  rain  and  mud  in  a  doctor's  sulky,  I 
was  able  to  hand  to  "Frank"  Tracy  the  returns  from 
the  most  distant  townshijis  by  which  his  election  as  dis- 
trict attorney  was  assured.  It  seems  almost  incredible 
now  that  so  large  a  hand  could  have  been  taken  in  poli- 
tics by  a  boy  so  much  under  his  majority.  It  is  a  slight 
indication  of  one  change  which  has  taken  place  in  social 
conditions.  Boys  were  in  the  habit  of  doing  many 
things  fifty  or  sixty  years  ago  which  they  would  hardly 
be  expected  to  do  to-day,  I  am  sure,  however,  that  I  suf- 
fered no  injury  whatever  from  my  contact  with  politics 
at  this  callow  age.  Nothing  dishonorable  was  required 
of  me;  there  were  no  signs  of  bribery  or  corruption; 
for  the  political  work  which  I  did  I  never  received  a 
penny,  nor  dreamed  of  such  a  thing.  It  must  have  taken 
very  little  money  in  those  days  to  carry  elections.  Tioga 
County,  New  York,  has  since  been  supposed  to  be  one  of 
the  centres  of  dubious  politics,  but  it  was  clean  enough 
in  those  old  times. 


^  RECOLLECTIONS 

Further  to  complicate  the  political  situation,  there 
entered,  about  this  time,  the  agitation  against  citizens 
of  foreign  birth.  The  Irish  famine,  and  the  unsuccessful 
revolutionary  movements  of  1848  upon  the  European 
continent,  had  greatly  stimulated  immigration  to  the 
United  States ;  and  many  Americans  had  begun  to  feel 
alarm  respecting  the  possible  encroachments  of  foreign 
ideas  and  influences.  This  fear  had  long  been  simmering ; 
it  came  to  a  boil  in  the  organization,  about  1852,  of  an 
oath-bound  secret  order,  popularly  described  as  Know- 
Nothings,  whose  purpose  was  the  exclusion  from  citizen- 
ship and  from  political  office  of  aU  persons  born  outside 
the  United  States.  The  antipathies  appealed  to  were 
partly  racial  and  partly  religious.  With  some  the  fact 
of  foreign  birth  was  the  reason  for  ostracism ;  with  others 
the  attachment  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  was  the 
ground  of  condemnation.  Indeed,  the  crusade  divided 
on  this  issue.  Another  order  appeared  whose  votaries 
were  called  Know-Somethings;  the  difference  between 
the  two  being  that  the  Know-Somethings  proposed  to 
disfranchise  all  Roman  Catholics,  no  matter  where  born ; 
and  the  Know-Nothings  to  disqualify  all  those  of  foreign 
birth,  no  matter  of  what  religion.  The  Know-Some- 
things gained  but  a  small  following;  but  the  Know- 
Nothings,  in  a  year  or  two,  overran  the  land.  "In  the 
autumn  of  1854,"  says  Woodrow  Wilson,  "they  elected 
their  candidates  for  the  governorship  in  Massachusetts 
and  Delaware,  and  put  close  upon  a  hundred  mem- 
bers into  the  Federal  House  of  Representatives.  In  the 
autumn  of  1855,  they  carried  New  Hampshire,  Mas- 
sachusetts,  Rhode   Island,   Connecticut,    New  York, 


VILLAGE  LIFE  AND  APPRENTICESHIP      53 

Kentucky,  and  California,  and  fell  but  a  little  short  of 
majority  in  six  of  the  southern  states."  ^ 

There  is  not  much  to  flatter  our  national  self-com- 
placency in  the  contemplation  of  such  an  episode  as  this 
in  our  history.  Prejudices  so  rank  and  noxious  ought 
not  to  grow  upon  American  soil.  Even  if  the  suspicions 
on  which  they  were  based  were  justified,  it  ought  to  be 
evident  to  those  who  have  breathed  this  free  air  all  their 
lives  that  the  methods  of  secrecy  are  not  the  methods 
by  which  liberty  may  best  be  safeguarded.  I  very  well 
remember  the  feeling  of  the  atmosphere  created  by  this 
clandestine  propaganda;  it  was  sultry  and  fetid  with 
distrust  and  resentment;  it  was  distinctly  anti-social. 
No  one  knew  what  plots  against  his  freedom  might  be 
hid  in  the  breast  of  any  neighbor  whom  he  might  meet. 
Such  a  state  of  things  is  simply  intolerable.  Liberty 
would  stifle  in  an  air  hke  that.  Whatever  may  be  said 
of  secrecy  in  relations  which  are  purely  fraternal  or 
social,  there  is  no  room  for  it  in  political  or  civil  affairs. 
Here  everything  must  be  out  in  the  open.  No  man  has 
any  right  to  be  plotting  public  policies  which  are  to  be 
carried  by  concealment  and  stealth;  for  such  policies 
affect  the  interests  of  all  his  neighbors,  and  they  have 
a  right  to  know  all  about  them.  Secret  political  orders 
in  a  free  country  can  never  be  anything  but  a  curse. 
It  is  the  first  duty  of  every  patriotic  citizen  to  denounce 
and  oppose  them,  no  matter  at  what  cost  to  himself. 

It  is  not  altogether  cheering  to  reflect  that  in  a  coun- 
try which  boasts  of  universal  education,  this  elementary 
principle  should  have  been  so  feebly  grasped ;  that  there 

•  History  of  tlie  American  People,  ii,  171. 


54  RECOLLECTIONS 

could  be  in  Congress  a  hundred  representatives  who 
had  been  chosen  by  dark-lantern  methods,  and  who 
were  pledged  to  the  disfranchisement  of  all  such  men 
as  Carl  Schurz  and  John  Ireland. 

What  gave  free  course  to  this  epidemic,  at  this  time, 
was,  undoubtedly,  the  political  disintegration  which 
followed  the  election  of  Pierce  in  1852.  The  "S^Tiig  Party 
was  done  for,  there  was  no  doubt  of  that ;  and  the  repeal 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise  was  forcing  a  new  combina- 
tion of  the  elements.  The  logical  outcome  was  fore- 
shadowed by  the  Free  Soil  Party,  which  had  had  its 
candidates  in  the  field  for  the  last  two  campaigns ;  but 
the  leaders  were  reluctant  to  take  that  plunge.  \Miile 
they  stood  shivering  on  the  brink,  this  wave  of  nativism 
swept  over  the  country.  But  there  was,  of  course,  no 
future  for  an  organization  whose  strength  was  in  its 
antipathies  and  whose  ways  were  subterranean.  As  Mr. 
Greeley  shrewdly  said,  it  held  about  as  much  promise 
of  permanence  as  an  anti-cholera  or  an  anti-potato-rot 
association.  The  Know-Nothings  were  very  confident, 
in  1855,  that  they  would  elect  the  next  President ;  in 
fact,  they  carried  the  State  of  Maryland,  and  had  eight 
votes  in  the  electoral  college.  It  is  not  comforting  to 
remember  that  the  American  people  harbored  such  a 
conspiracy  as  this,  even  for  a  brief  space ;  but  it  is  reas- 
suring to  recall  the  promptness  and  decisiveness  of  the 
judgment  by  which  they  put  it  out  of  existence.  It 
would  have  been  well  if  they  had  made  an  end  of  it  then, 
but  that  kind  of  bigotry  has  as  many  lives  as  a  cat,  and 
we  shall  meet  it  again  before  the  end  of  our  story. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   CHOICE   OF  A   CALLING 

Not  to  fawn  on  wealth  and  state, 
Leaving  Lazarus  at  the  gate ; 
Not  to  peddle  creeds  like  wares ; 
Not  to  mutter  hireling  prayers ; 

Nor  to  paint  the  new  life's  bliss 
On  the  sable  ground  of  this ; 
Golden  streets  for  idle  knave, 
Sabbath  rest  for  weary  slave! 

Not  for  words  and  works  like  these, 
Priest  of  God,  thy  mission  is; 
But  to  make  earth's  desert  glad 
In  its  Eden  greenness  clad ; 

And  to  level  manhood  bring 
Lord  and  peasant,  serf  and  king; 
And  the  Christ  of  God  to  find 
In  the  humblest  of  thy  kind! 

John  Greenleaf  Whittier. 

It  would  not  be  fair  to  myself  to  permit  the  impres- 
sion that  the  period  of  my  newspaper  apprenticeship 
was  devoted  wholly  to  politics.  Other  interests  claimed 
a  large  share  of  my  attention.  I  must  confess  that  dur- 
ing the  first  new  months  of  my  residence  in  the  village 
I  spent  a  good  many  of  my  Sundays  elsewhere  than  in 
church.  I  cannot  say  that  this  was  a  reaction  against 
the  compulsion  of  earlier  years,  for  there  had  been  no 
compulsion ;  if  there  had  been  pressure  upon  my  life,  it 
had  been  as  unobtrusive  and  inevitable  as  the  pressure 


56  RECOLLECTIONS 

of  the  atmosphere ;  I  had  gone  to  church  without  ques- 
tioning. But  when  the  influence  was  removed,  I  found 
my  own  inclination  hardly  sufficient  to  move  myself 
in  that  direction.  In  fact,  my  garments  were  a  little 
shabby ;  that  excuse  was  sufficient  for  some  weeks,  and 
when  it  was  no  longer  serviceable  I  had  already  formed 
the  habit  of  staying  away  from  church;  and  such  a 
habit,  as  I  discovered,  is  easier  formed  than  broken. 
With  the  strict  notions  about  the  use  of  Sunday  in 
which  I  had  been  reared,  I  could  never  have  devoted 
the  day  to  ordinary  pleasure-seeking ;  I  usually  spent  it 
in  the  printing-office,  reading  and  writing ;  often  promis- 
ing myself  that  I  would  resume  the  church-going  habit, 
but  easily  finding  reason  for  delay  as  the  Sundays 
came  round. 

That  brief  experience  has  thrown  some  light  for  me  on 
the  question  of  church  neglect.  We  are  all  creatures  of 
habit;  church-going  and  staying  at  home  are  largely 
matters  of  habit.  It  would  have  been  easy  enough  to 
attribute  my  absence  from  church  to  intellectual  or 
theological  or  social  causes ;  in  fact,  it  was  due  to  inertia. 
And  it  is  safe  to  conclude  that  a  large  share  of  the 
church  neglect  for  which  earnest  men  in  these  days  are 
trying  to  account  is  chargeable  to  indolence  rather  than 
to  unbelief. 

The  voice  that  called  me  back  to  my  accustomed  ways 
was  that  of  an  evangelist,  somewhat  famous  in  those 
times,  the  Reverend  Jedediah  Burchard,  D.  D.,  who  was 
conducting  a  series  of  services  in  the  Congregational 
church.  Dr.  Burchard  was  a  man  of  keen  intellect  and 
vivid  imagination ;  his  theology  was  a  mild  Calvinism, 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  CALLING  57 

but  his  notion  of  Christian  experience  was  simple  and 
sensible;  and  he  cleared  away,  with  a  breath,  the  fogs 
which  had  so  long  been  obscuring  the  way  of  disciple- 
ship.  I  connected  myself  at  once  with  the  church,  and 
found  myself  deeply  enlisted  in  its  work.  As  the  months 
went  by  these  interests  laid  stronger  hold  upon  me, 
and  gradually  brought  me  to  reconsider  my  plans  of  life. 
In  the  early  months  of  1855,  a  way  was  unexpectedly 
opened  to  me  to  begin  my  preparation  for  college,  and 
after  teaching  a  brief  term  in  a  country  school,  I  found 
myself,  in  April  of  that  year,  in  the  Owego  Academy 
with  my  face  set  toward  the  work  of  the  Christian  min- 
istry. 

Church  life,  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  was 
much  less  highly  developed  than  it  is  to-day.  The  activi- 
ties of  the  church  were  summed  up  in  the  two  Sunday 
preaching  services,  the  Sunday-school,  and  the  mid- 
week prayer-meeting.  Social  meetings  were  rare,  the 
young  people  were  not  organized,  an  occasional  sewing- 
society  or  mothers'  meeting  sufficed  to  express  the 
religious  zeal  of  the  women.  Worship,  in  the  non- 
Episcopal  churches,  was  the  reverse  of  ornate.  Usually 
the  hymns  were  sung  by  a  mixed  choir,  and  the  people 
took  no  part  in  the  singing ;  there  were  no  hymn-books 
with  tunes ;  the  choir  was  provided  with  tune-books,  of 
which  "The  Dulcimer,"  ''The  Shawm,"  and  "Carmina 
Sacra"  are  well  remembered.  Sometimes  the  key  was 
found  by  the  chorister's  tuning-fork,  and  the  hynms 
were  sung  without  accompaniment;  generally,  however, 
a  small  melodeon  sustained  the  voices.  Here  and  there 
was  a  pipe  organ.  The  more  ambitious  choirs  ventured, 


58  RECOLLECTIONS 

occasionally,  upon  an  anthem.  Of  course  all  this  service 
was  voluntary. 

The  preaching  was,  for  the  most  part,  theological,  and 
it  was  often  controversial.  The  Calvinistic  doctrines 
were  much  debated,  the  Presbyterians  and  the  Baptists 
affirming,  and  the  ]\Iethodists  denying.  The  doctrine  of 
predestination  was,  of  course,  the  one  around  which  the 
contention  raged  most  hotly;  but  the  fatalistic  infer- 
ences drawn  from  it  were  warmly  repudiated  by  the 
New  School  Calvinists.  Indeed,  there  were  many,  even 
then,  in  the  Calvinistic  churches,  who  were  inclined  to 
say  with  Mr.  Beecher,  "The  elect  are  whosoever  will, 
and  the  non-elect  are  whosoever  won't." 

Baptism  was  also,  in  our  neighborhood,  a  frequent 
theme  of  controversy.  The  Baptists  were  very  enter- 
prising evangelists,  and  they  pushed  their  distinctive 
plea  with  relentless  logic,  and  enforced  it  by  immersing 
scores  of  candidates,  every  winter,  in  openings  cut 
through  the  ice  of  the  river. 

The  preaching,  in  all  the  churches,  when  it  was  not 
controversial,  was  almost  wholly  evangelistic.  The  con- 
version of  sinners  was  supposed  to  be  the  preacher's 
main  business.  Respecting  the  eternal  punishment  of 
those  who  die  impenitent,  and  the  impossibility  of  re- 
pentance beyond  the  grave,  there  was  no  difference  of 
opinion  among  evangelical  Christians,  and  the  immense 
importance  of  saving  men  from  this  fate  overshad- 
owed all  other  interests.  The  appeal  was,  therefore, 
almost  wholly  individualistic.  It  constantly  directed 
the  thoughts  of  men  to  the  consideration  of  their  own 
personal  welfare.    The  motive  of  fear  was  the  leading 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  CALLING  59 

motive,  but  the  bliss  of  tiie  heavenly  life  was  also 
vividly  portrayed.  That  hell  was  a  veritable  lake  of  fire 
and  brimstone  was  hardly  questioned  by  any  one.  My 
memory  holds  many  such  representations.  I  was  accus- 
tomed to  hear,  in  my  boyhood,  the  famous  Jacob  Knapp, 
one  of  the  most  popular  evangelists  of  the  central 
states ;  and  I  shall  never  forget  some  of  his  descriptions 
of  the  burning  pit,  with  the  sinners  trying  to  crawl  up  its 
sides  out  of  the  flames,  while  the  devils,  with  pitchforks, 
stood  by  to  fling  them  back  again.  It  was  intended,  of 
course,  to  frighten  sinners;  probably  it  had  that  effect 
on  many,  but  I  wonder  whether  it  was,  on  the  whole, 
even  then,  as  telling  as  it  was  supposed  to  be.  For 
myself,  though  a  small  boy,  I  distinctly  remember  that 
it  made  me  angry. 

Not  many  of  the  preachers  of  that  time  indulged  in 
the  sensational  savagery  of  Elder  Knapp ;  but  the  ter- 
rors of  the  future  were  steadily  held  before  our  minds. 
That  fear  was  always  haunting  me  in  my  childhood; 
my  most  horrible  dreams  were  of  that  place  of  torment. 

The  expectation  of  the  destruction  of  the  world  by 
fire  was  another  nightmare.  The  Millerite  horror  was 
hanging  over  us  in  my  earliest  days ;  I  remember  well  a 
lecture,  in  the  Baptist  church,  when  I  was  only  seven 
years  old,  in  which  the  lecturer,  with  figures  drawn 
from  the  prophecy  of  Daniel,  proved  with  chalk  upon  a 
blackboard  that  the  world  was  going  to  be  burned  up 
in  1843.  I  could  add  up  those  figures  for  myself ;  there 
they  were  in  black  and  white,  and  the  correct  sum  was 
1843.  Was  it  not  a  demonstration  ?  There  was  a  blazing 
comet,  too,  in  the  sky  that  winter,  —  "wonders  in  the 


60  RECOLLECTIONS 

heaven  above,  and  signs  on  the  earth  beneath,"  the 
preacher  said ;  and  I  could  see  the  comet,  through  my 
window,  every  night.  I  shall  not  be  blamed  for  hiding 
my  head  under  the  coverlet,  from  the  terrible  portent. 

When  the  last  days  of  1843  had  passed,  and  the  sun 
was  bright  on  the  New  Year's  morning  of  1844,  I  was 
delivered  from  a  great  horror,  but  the  peril  was  only 
postponed,  for  it  was  admitted  by  all  that  that  catas- 
trophe was  inevitable,  and  that  probably  the  day  was 
not  distant.  My  greatest  relief  came  from  a  conclusion 
reached  in  a  conversation  of  men  standing  about  the 
well  one  hot  summer  day.  They  were  seriously  ponder- 
ing the  discredited  prediction  of  Miller;  they  agreed  that 
while  he  had  missed  in  his  calculation,  the  conflagration 
was  coming ;  and  they  were  inclined  to  accept  a  state- 
ment which  one  of  them  had  seen,  that  it  was  likely 
to  take  place  about  1860.  That  lifted  a  load  from  my 
heart.  If  the  disaster  was  to  be  deferred  to  such  a 
remote  futurity,  —  if  the  world  had  a  good  seventeen 
years  yet  to  endure,  —  there  was  no  need  of  worrying. 
I  went  back  to  my  play. 

Still,  the  dates  were  all  uncertain,  and  with  such  a 
peril  impending  one  could  not  always  resist  the  onset 
of  sudden  fears.  Any  unusual  appearance  in  the  sky 
was  likely  to  quicken  the  pulse.  I  remember  one 
October  day,  five  or  six  years  later,  when  the  haze  grew 
dense  and  yellow,  and  the  air  was  filled  with  the  odor 
of  smoke,  and  there  were  lurid  spots  in  the  sky.  I  was 
working  alone  in  a  back  lot,  and  fear  took  possession  of 
me ;  I  thought  that  the  Great  Day  had  come. 

I  do  not  think  that  subjective  conditions  such  as  I 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  CALLING  61 

have  described  were  rare  in  those  days;  they  were  the 
natural  product  of  the  prevaiUng  teaching.  The  busi- 
ness of  religion  was  to  fill  the  hearts  of  men  with  fear. 
The  fear  was  a  personal  fear;  it  concentrated  the 
thoughts  of  men  on  their  own  danger,  and  their  own 
safety.  It  cannot  be  argued  that  this  is  the  normal 
regimen  of  the  human  soul.  If  force  and  fear  are  moral 
motives,  they  are  certainly  among  the  lowest  moral 
motives;  the  conduct  which  they  inspire  must  be  an 
inferior  kind  of  conduct.  And  it  must  be  admitted  that 
the  aspects  of  religion  which  were  most  commonly  pre- 
sented to  men  from  the  pulpit  in  those  days  were  not 
such  as  tended  to  develop  an  altruistic  habit. 

This  is  not  saying  that  all  religious  people  were 
egoists.  Far  from  it.  Though  the  motive  which  was 
most  often  addressed  in  leading  men  into  the  religious 
life  was  the  motive  of  self-interest,  when  they  were 
brought  mto  the  Christian  life  they  were  required  to  put 
themselves  under  the  tuition  and  leadership  of  Jesus 
Christ.  That  was  the  meaning  of  discipleship.  And 
if,  through  the  four  Gospels,  they  made  themselves 
acquainted  with  him,  —  if  they  took  his  yoke  upon 
them  and  learned  of  him,  —  they  would  soon  find  them- 
selves under  the  sway  of  very  different  motives  from 
those  which  first  turned  them  toward  discipleship.  So 
it  is  true  that  the  rehgion  of  the  Christian  church  has 
always  been  immeasurably  more  Christian  than  its 
theology.  Christ  is  a  Saviour  in  more  senses  than 
one ;  he  has  always  been  saving  his  own  church  from 
the  blighting  consequences  of  a  bad  theology,  and 
helping  his  disciples  to  be  a  great  deal  better  people 


62  RECOLLECTIONS 

than,  by  their  own  theories,  they  would  or  could  have 
been. 

I  have  been  speaking  of  the  conceptions  and  tenden- 
cies which  were  prevailing  in  the  Protestant  churches 
of  this  country  up  to  the  time  when  my  mind  was 
turned  to  the  Christian  ministry.  But  I  ought  to  explain 
that,  about  this  time,  some  very  marked  signs  were  ap- 
pearing of  a  different  temper  and  tendency.  The  interest 
which  the  churches  were  taking  in  the  temperance 
reform  and  the  anti-slavery  reform  was  an  indication  of 
a  new  spirit.  The  ethical  and  altruistic  note  was  being 
struck  now,  in  many  pulpits,  with  clearness  and  vigor. 
That  mighty  change,  of  which  I  have  spoken,  which 
passed  upon  the  popular  mind  in  the  sixth  decade  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  was  felt  in  the  churches  as  deeply  as 
anywhere  else.  By  the  middle  of  that  decade  it  was 
finding  voice  everywhere.  Some  churches  responded  to 
this  influence  more  promptly  than  others.  The  Epis- 
copalians and  the  Presbyterians,  always  conservative, 
were  slower  to  answer  to  it.  The  Baptists  in  our  neigh- 
borhood were  most  hospitable  to  the  new  humanitarian 
impulse;  I  heard  Gerrit  Smith  speak  more  than  once 
from  their  pulpit,  and  they  welcomed  colored  preachers 
and  lecturers  speaking  in  the  interest  of  their  race.  The 
Methodists,  generally,  were  enthusiastic  advocates  of 
the  new  gospel  of  freedom,  yet  here  and  there  were  con- 
trary tendencies.  The  local  Congregational  church,  to 
which  I  had  become  attached,  was,  from  the  first,  in  the 
front  rank  of  this  ethical  movement.  It  had  originated, 
indeed,  in  a  protest  against  the  conservatism  which  for- 
bade the  church  to  identify  itself  with  the  interests  of 


f 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  CALLING  63 

humanity.  Its  first  pastor  was  the  young  minister  who 
had  been  compelled  to  leave  the  Presbyterian  church 
because  he  had  dared  to  pray  for  the  slaves ;  after  he  had 
returned  to  New  England,  a  number  of  his  former  par- 
ishioners seceded  from  the  Presbyterian  church,  formed 
themselves  into  a  Congregational  church,  and  called  him 
back  to  be  their  pastor.  He  was  in  his  place  in  the 
church  on  the  day  when  I  was  received  into  its  mem- 
bership, though  his  health  was  broken,  and  his  work 
was  done.  I  think  that  that  was  the  last  time  he  ever 
appeared  in  the  pulpit. 

A  church  with  such  an  origin  was  not  likely  to  occupy 
an  ambiguous  position  in  such  a  time  as  that ;  and  the 
members  of  this  church,  though  not  many  of  the  mighty 
and  the  noble  were  among  them,  were  men  who  had 
the  courage  of  tlieir  convictions,  while  their  pastors 
were  brave  and  faithful  leaders.  Doubtless  there  were, 
in  those  days,  Congregationalists  who  were  timid  and 
hesitant  in  confronting  the  issues  of  the  hour,  but  our 
church  was  not  of  that  school.  The  New  York  "  Inde- 
p)endent"  was  the  paper  we  all  read,  and  Mr.  Beecher 
and  Dr.  Cheever  and  Dr.  Thompson  of  the  Broadway 
Tabernacle  were  the  leaders  with  whom  we  found  our- 
selves in  closest  sympathy. 

Such,  then,  was  the  soil  in  which  my  purpose  to  enter 
the  ministry  took  root.  It  was  not  an  individualistic 
pietism  that  appealed  to  me ;  it  was  a  religion  that  laid 
hold  upon  life  with  both  hands,  and  proposed,  first  and 
foremost,  to  realize  the  Kingdom  of  God  in  this  world. 
I  do  not  think  that  any  other  outlook  upon  the  work 
would  have  attracted  me.  I  had  known  the  history  of 


64  RECOLLECTIONS 

this  little  Congregational  church  from  its  beginning; 
I  had  been  in  keenest  sympathy  with  all  for  which  it 
stood,  and  the  ethical  thoroughness  with  which  it  com- 
mitted itself  to  the  cause  of  freedom  when  the  gage  of 
battle  was  thrown  down  by  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise  called  out  all  my  enthusiasm.  I  wanted 
to  be  —  if  I  could  make  myself  fit  —  the  minister  of  a 
church  like  that.  I  could  not  think  of  any  life  better 
worth  living. 

The  next  year  and  a  half  was  a  strenuous  period. 
There  was  no  time  to  waste  in  my  work  of  preparation 
for  college.  Happily  the  methods  were  so  flexible  both 
in  the  Owego  Academy  and  in  a  boarding-school  near 
the  village,  between  which  schools  my  time  was  divided, 
that  it  was  possible  for  one  who  wished  to  advance 
rapidly  to  go  at  his  own  gait.  Much  of  the  time  I  was 
studying  alone,  and  my  teachers  gave  me  every  possible 
assistance  and  encouragement.  I  think  that  I  gave,  on 
an  average,  fourteen  or  fifteen  hours  a  day  to  study,  for 
six  days  in  the  week ;  on  Sunday  the  rest  was  absolute. 

Of  all  the  days  I  had  known,  these  were  the  happiest. 
The  mathematical  studies  had  no  special  interest  for  me, 
though  I  had  no  serious  difficulty  with  them ;  but  the 
languages  and  the  literatures  of  Greece  and  Rome,  into 
which  I  was  now  getting  an  introduction,  were  full  of 
fascination.  Perhaps  my  linguistic  bent  was  due  to  the 
early  training  of  my  father ;  at  all  events,  I  have  always 
found  the  keenest  pleasure  in  such  pursuits,  and  it  has 
been  a  life-long  regret  that  I  have  found  so  little  time 
to  give  to  them.  These  years  in  which  I  was  getting 
acquainted  with  the  rudiments  of  the  Latin  and  the 


THE  CHOICE  OF  A  CALLING  65 

Greek  were,  therefore,  delightful  years;  and  I  confess 
that  I  am  never  able  to  get  the  point  of  view  of  those 
educational  reformers  who  propose  to  deprive  American 
boys  of  this  kind  of  pleasure.  The  days  and  the  nights 
that  I  spent  in  tramping  through  Gaul  with  Julius 
Caesar,  or  delving,  with  Titus  Livius,  into  Roman  anti- 
quities, or  following  the  fortunes  of  Vergil's  hero,  or 
marching  with  Cyrus  against  the  Persians,  or  debating 
with  Socrates  against  the  Sophists,  are  memorable  days 
and  nights.  Do  you  tell  us,  my  masters,  that  there  are 
to  be  no  more  of  them ;  that  our  boys  are  nevermore 
to  know  the  joy  of  turning  one  of  Homer's  sonorous 
hexameters  into  resounding  English,  or  of  finding  the 
just  right  word  for  one  of  Horace's  dainty  epithets?  It 
may  be  that  you  will  have  it  so,  but  some  of  us  will  be 
glad  that  we  lived  in  a  better  day. 

Absorbing  as  these  occupations  were,  other  matters 
were  forcing  themselves  upon  the  attention  of  the 
busiest  of  us.  These  months  of  1855  and  1856  were  wit- 
nessing some  portentous  political  movements.  The 
struggle  for  the  possession  of  Kansas  was  going  on,  and 
exciting  reports  of  the  collision  between  the  free  state 
forces  and  the  border  ruffians  were  reaching  us  by  every 
mail,  so  that  the  wrath  of  Achilles  and  the  perfidy  of 
Catiline  were  mingled,  in  our  musings,  with  the  strenu- 
ousness  of  Stringfellow  and  the  fanatical  vengeance  of 
old  John  Brown.  The  Congress  which  the  northern 
reaction  against  the  Nebraska  Bill  had  sent  to  Washing- 
ton was  going  through  a  protracted  struggle  to  get  itself 
organized ;  legislation  was  paralyzed  while  the  House  of 
Representatives  fought  for  two  months  over  the  elee- 


66  RECOLLECTIONS 

tion  of  a  speaker.  The  conflicting  currents  of  public 
opinion  which  found  expression  in  this  contest  were, 
however,  gradually  merged  in  a  new  political  organiza- 
tion which  called  itself  the  Republican  Party,  and  which 
chose  John  C.  Fremont  to  be  its  leader.  When  such 
things  as  these  were  happening,  it  was  sometimes  diffi- 
cult for  a  boy  to  give  undivided  attention  even  to  the 
rhetoric  of  Cicero,  or  the  dialectic  of  Socrates.  Now  and 
then  I  found  myself  enticed  away  to  a  mass  meeting 
in  the  village;  and  with  much  trepidation  I  ventured 
to  contribute  a  song  —  a  parody  on  Saxe's  "Rhjine  of 
the  Rail "  —  which  served  the  Republican  Glee  Club 
through  this  campaign.  The  leader  of  the  club,  then 
taking  his  first  lesson  in  politics,  was  Mr.  Thomas  C. 
Piatt.  I  read,  not  long  ago,  in  one  of  the  magazines,  a 
satirical  description  of  the  performances  of  Mr.  Piatt 
in  this  campaign ;  the  satire  was  not  meant  to  be  mali- 
cious, but  it  was  quite  beside  the  mark,  for  the  leader 
of  the  Glee  Club  was  no  such  gawky  personage  as  he  is 
there  painted.  \Vhatever  judgment  we  may  entertain 
respecting  Mr.  Piatt's  career  as  a  national  politician, 
we  need  not  deny  that  in  these  early  days  he  was  a 
well-mannered  young  gentleman,  a  good  singer,  and 
an  effective  conductor  of  his  club. 


CHAPTER  V 

COLLEGE    DAYS 

Come,  dear  old  comrade,  you  and  I 
Will  steal  an  hour  from  days  gone  by,  — 
The  shining  days  when  life  was  new. 
And  all  was  bright  as  morning  dew. 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 

It  was  for  Williams  College  that  my  preparation  had 
been  made,  ^^llcn  I  entered  the  Academy  I  had  never 
heard  of  it,  and  my  thought  had  been  directed  toward 
Hamilton  College,  at  Clinton,  New  York ;  but  the  prin- 
cipal of  the  Academy  was  an  enthusiastic  graduate  of 
Williams,  and  he  soon  convinced  me  that  that  was 
my  proper  destination.  In  September,  1S56,  having,  as 
I  confidently  hoped,  made  myself  ready  to  enter  the 
sophomore  class  at  Williams,  I  turned  my  face  again 
eastward.  Many  things  had  happenetl  during  the  four- 
teen years  which  had  elapsed  since  I  traveled  to  Massa- 
chusetts in  a  buggy;  the  Erie  railway  connected  Owego 
with  New  York,  and  a  midnight  train  carried  me  to  the 
metropolis.  The  sleeping-car  was  not  yet.  and  the  pol- 
luted air  of  the  crowded  coach,  coupled  with  the  sicken- 
ing motion,  made  my  first  long  railway  ride  a  dismal 
memory.  What  a  relief  it  was  to  stand  upon  the  deck 
of  the  ferry-boat  at  Jersey  City  and  breathe  the  salt 
air !  The  sky-line,  as  one  looked  eastward,  was  not  what 
one  sees  nowadays ;  the  spires  of  Trinity  and  St.  Paul's 
churches  punctuated  the  horizon ;  with  architectural 


68  RECOLLECTIONS 

sublimities  of  such  dimensions  our  souls  could  then  be 
stirred,  and  there  were  buildings  of  five  or  six  stories  in 
height,  the  sight  of  which  made  us  dizzy.  But  the  great 
river  was  all  there ;  and  the  beautiful  baj^  with  the  small 
islands  in  the  foreground,  and  the  green  slopes  of  Staten 
Island  in  the  distance,  with  the  shipping  ranged  along 
the  wharves,  and  ocean  steamers  that  seemed  huge 
lying  there  at  anchor,  and  the  smaller  craft  plying  to 
and  fro,  made  a  picture  never  to  be  forgotten. 

A  day  in  the  metropolis,  with  glimpses  of  the  grandeur 
of  the  Astor  House  and  the  St.  Nicholas  Hotel,  and  the 
other  marvels  of  Broadway,  with  a  peep  into  the  offices 
of  the  "Tribune"  and  the  ''Herald,"  a  wondering  look 
at  Bamum's  Museum,  and  a  brief  stroll  through  the 
Batter}'-,  was  ended  by  a  sail  up  the  East  River  on  the 
Hartford  boat,  for  I  was  going  to  take  in  Southampton, 
on  my  way  to  Williamstown. 

It  was  a  beautiful  September  evening,  half  an  hour 
before  sunset,  when  I  mounted  the  Williamstown  stage 
at  North  Adams ;  recent  rains  had  freshened  the  mead- 
ows, the  forests  on  the  mountain-sides  still  wore  their 
summer  dress,  the  fleecy  clouds  touched  with  crimson, 
that  rested  upon  the  Taghkanics  in  the  west,  or  crowned 
the  Saddle  profile  on  the  south,  set  off  the  bluest  of 
skies.  I  had  never  seen  anything  so  beautiful  as  that 
Williamstown  vaUey  appeared  to  me  that  evening ;  and 
I  cannot  say  that  I  have  seen  anything  since  that  has 
robbed  it  of  its  charm. 

The  entrance  examinations  the  next  day  were  not 
formidable,  and  before  night  I  was  matriculated  as  a 
sophomore,  and  established  in  the  southwest  corner  of 


COLLEGE  DAYS  69 

West  College  on  the  lower  floor.  Thus  opens  a  chapter 
of  this  history  which  must  have  far  more  significance  to 
the  writer  of  it  than  it  can  have  to  any  of  its  readers. 

Williams  College  in  1856  was  an  institution  of  modest 
pretensions.  Its  faculty  consisted  of  but  nine  members, 
all  of  them  full  professors,  and  the  four  classes  averaged 
less  than  sixty  each.  There  may  have  been  half-a-dozen 
"special"  students  who  were  taking  a  partial  course; 
but  almost  all  were  candidates  for  the  degree  of  bachelor 
of  arts.  The  curriculum  was  perfectly  rigid ;  all  the  work 
was  required ;  the  only  electives  were  in  the  junior  year, 
when  we  were  permitted  to  choose  between  French  and 
German.  The  classes  were  not  divided,  the  instructional 
force  did  not  admit  of  that ;  the  whole  class  met,  three 
times  a  day,  in  the  recitation-room ;  naturally  a  student 
became  pretty  well  acquainted  with  all  his  classmates. 
There  was  some  advantage  in  the  fact  that  all  the  in- 
struction was  given  by  full  professors ;  tutorial  assist- 
ance had  been  called  in,  in  former  years,  but  there  was 
none  of  it  in  my  day. 

The  teaching  was  mainly  by  means  of  text-books  and 
oral  recitations ;  lectures  were  few ;  in  the  last  two  years 
there  were  a  few  courses,  but  note-books  were  not  much 
used  in  my  time.  The  range  of  teaching  was  not  wide. 
In  the  first  two  years  Greek,  Latin,  and  mathematics 
took  up  nearly  all  the  time ;  in  the  sophomore  year  there 
was  a  course  in  Weber's  "Universal  History."  No  Eng- 
lish was  required  for  entrance,  and  the  only  English 
work  of  the  first  two  years  was  one  or  two  themes  each 
term,  with  an  occasional  declamation  before  the  class. 
There  was  also  a  speaking  exercise,  every  Wednesday 


70'  RECOLLECTIONS 

afternoon  at  the  chapel,  which  the  entire  college  was 
required  to  attend,  and  there  were  two  speakers  from 
each  class ;  seniors  and  juniors  presented  original  ora- 
tions, sophomores  and  freshmen  declaimed.  The  presi- 
dent and  the  professor  of  rhetoric  presided,  and  criticised 
each  speaker  at  the  close  of  his  performance. 

In  the  junior  year  there  were  lessened  rations  of  Latin 
and  Greek,  and  some  elementary  instruction  in  science 
was  given,  so  that  every  graduate  might  have  some 
notion  of  the  groundwork  of  botany  and  chemistry  and 
physics  and  astronomy  and  mineralogy  and  geology; 
a  single  term  was  sufficient  for  political  economy,  and 
the  tale  of  the  themes  was  slightly  increased.  The  senior 
year  was  devoted  largely  to  mental  and  moral  science, 
logic,  the  elements  of  rhetoric,  and  criticism,  and  the 
evidences  of  Christianity,  with  Paley's  ''Natural  The- 
ology" and  Butler's  "Analogy."  I  have  reproduced  the 
curriculum  wholly  from  memory,  but  I  think  that  I  have 
not  omitted  anything  essential. 

Something  like  this  was,  I  suppose,  the  course  of  study 
in  most  of  the  New  England  colleges  of  that  period. 
Compare  it  with  the  bulletins  of  any  of  them  to-day,  and 
it  seems  a  meagre  provision  for  a  liberal  education.  Yet 
there  was  enough  in  this,  if  rightly  used,  to  secure  a  fair 
amount  of  mental  discipline,  and  to  guide  inquiring 
minds  toward  the  things  worth  knowing. 

Better  than  the  methods  of  instruction  was  the  per- 
sonal contact  with  the  instructors.  Every  student  in 
college  was  personally  known  by  every  member  of  the 
faculty,  and  the  personal  interest  of  the  teachers  in  the 
students  was  as  paternal  as  the  students  would  permit. 


COLLEGE  DAYS  71 

This  is  not,  indeed,  saying  a  great  deal,  for  in  that  time 
there  was  much  of  that  traditional  antagonism  which 
makes  it  a  point  of  honor  for  a  student  to  refuse  all 
friendly  relations  with  teachers,  as  members  of  a  hostile 
class,  and  which  stigmatizes  as  "bootlicks"  all  those 
who  seek  such  relations.  Nevertheless,  the  association 
between  teachers  and  students  was,  of  necessity,  so  close 
that  the  personal  touch  could  not  be  wholly  evaded,  and 
most  Williams  men  of  that  time  are  ready  now  to  con- 
fess that  the  best  gains  of  their  college  course  came  to 
them  in  this  way. 

The  conspicuous  figure  of  the  college  was  its  president, 
Mark  Hopkins,  one  of  the  four  or  five  great  teachers  that 
America  has  produced.  In  1856  he  was  in  his  prime, 
fifty-four  years  of  age,  tall,  with  a  slight  stoop,  but  stal- 
wart, with  a  swinging  gait.  Over  tlic  great  dome  which 
crowned  the  broad  forehead,  and  which  was  now  nearly 
denuded  of  its  covering,  long  brown  locks  were  coaxed ; 
and  the  strong  chin  and  the  Roman  nose,  with  the  eyes 
that  glanced  from  under  beetling  brows,  made  up  a 
countenance  of  great  dignity  and  benignity.  There  was 
but  one  opinion  about  Dr.  Hopkins  in  college ;  among 
the  students  his  intellectual  prowess  wa.s  not  disputed, 
and  the  wisdom  and  integrity  of  his  character  were 
never  questioned.  Every  man  has  his  foibles,  and  those 
who  stood  nearest  to  President  Hopkins  must  have 
known  what  were  his ;  but  the  student  body,  generally 
quick  enough  to  spy  out  inconsistencies  and  weaknesses, 
was  always  singularly  unanimous  and  enthusiastic  in  its 
loyalty  to  the  great  president. 

He  preached,  frequently,  in  the  village  church,  whose 


72  RECOLLECTIONS 

galleries  the  students  occupied ;  and  these  extempora- 
neous discourses,  delivered  with  great  deliberation  and 
dignity,  while  they  always  held  our  attention,  were  not 
apt  to  awaken  our  enthusiasm;  but  the  baccalaureate 
sermon  was  always  an  event.  That  was  fully  written ; 
its  philosophical  framework  was  strong,  its  logic  was 
convincing,  and  it  was  delivered  with  a  power  and  fervor 
which  made  a  lasting  impression. 

It  was  in  the  senior  year  that  the  students  came  in 
touch  with  Dr.  Hopkins;  a  large  share  of  the  work  of 
that  year  was  in  his  hands ;  the  seniors  met  him  every 
day  and  sometimes  twice ;  in  philosophy  and  ethics,  in 
logic  and  theology,  he  was  their  only  teacher.  The 
tradition  of  his  masterful  instruction  was  always 
descending;  the  freshmen  heard  of  it  from  all  above 
them;  it  was  the  expectation  of  every  student  that, 
however  unsatisfactory  other  parts  of  the  course  might 
turn  out  to  be,  there  would  be  something  worth  while  in 
the  senior  year.  The  expectation  was  not  disappointed. 
There  was  nothing  sensational  in  Dr.  Hopkins's  teach- 
ing ;  his  method  was  quiet  and  familiar ;  his  bearing  was 
modest  and  dignified ;  but  he  was  a  past-master  in  the 
art  of  questioning ;  he  knew  how  by  adroit  suggestion 
to  kindle  the  interest  of  his  pupils  in  the  subject  under 
discussion,  and  by  humor  and  anecdote  he  made  dry 
topics  vital  and  deep  waters  clear.  What  his  best  stu- 
dents got  from  him  was  not  so  much  conclusions  or 
results  of  investigation,  as  a  habit  of  mind,  a  method 
of  philosophical  approach,  a  breadth  and  balance  of 
thought,  which  might  serve  them  in  future  study.  "What 
Garfield  said  (and  I  heard  him  say  it,  at  a  Williams 


COLLEGE  DAYS  73 

banquet  at  Delmonico's  in  New  York)  expressed  the 
feeling  of  many  another  graduate  of  the  Berkshire  col- 
lege : "  A  pine  bench,  with  Mark  Hopkins  at  one  end  of  it 
and  me  at  the  other,  is  a  good  enough  college  for  me !" 

A  unique  exercise  was  the  conversation  on  the  Cate- 
chism every  Saturday  morning  in  senior  year.  Following 
the  Westminster  Assembly's  Shorter  Catechism,  Dr. 
Hopkins  led  his  seniors  carefully  over  the  whole  field  of 
theology.  The  questions  and  answers,  while  not  furnish- 
ing in  all  cases  an  adequate  statement  of  doctrine, 
served  as  a  convenient  guide  in  the  investigation  of  the 
deep  things  of  God ;  and  there  was  no  other  exercise  in 
which  the  peculiar  quality  of  this  teacher  appeared  more 
strikingly.  These  Saturday  morning  discussions  would 
have  been  a  good  equivalent  for  a  Seminary  course  in 
systematic  theology. 

President  Hopkins's  brother  Albert  was  another  great 
character  in  our  faculty.  With  a  figure  as  erect  and  lithe 
as  an  Indian's,  a  face  like  Abbey's  Elijah,  an  eye  that 
flashed  from  cavernous  sockets,  and  a  voice  like  a  trum- 
pet, "Prof.  Al "  was  the  one  man  in  the  faculty  whose 
moral  and  religious  influence  was  most  positive  and 
profound.  Our  respect  for  him  amounted  to  awe.  I  have 
never  known  any  one  whose  personality  more  perfectly 
filled  my  idea  of  a  Hebrew  prophet. 

Other  professors  whose  memory  the  students  of  that 
decade  will  recall  were  the  jocose  Tatlock,  whose  mathe- 
matical teaching  was  not  much  more  than  a  joke ;  the 
versatile  but  somewhat  irascible  Chadbourne,  who 
taught  but  a  little  botany  and  chemistry,  but  taught 
that  little  wonderfully  well ;  the  sprightly  and  vivacious 


74  RECOLLECTIONS 

Lincoln,  with  whom  Latin  prose  was  a  passion ;  the  calm 
and  scholarly  Phillips,  who  helped  us  to  feel  the  power 
of  Sophocles  and  the  glory  of  Demosthenes;  and  the 
enthusiastic  Perry,  whose  warm  heart  won  the  affection 
of  all  right-minded  men,  and  whose  championship  of 
free  trade  gave  rise  to  controversies  in  the  class  which 
were  sometimes  very  entertaining. 

Of  all  the  instructors,  however,  the  one  to  whom  I  am 
most  indebted  was  John  Bascom,  then  professor  of  rhe- 
toric, later,  for  many  years.  President  of  the  University 
of  Wisconsin,  and  now  resting,  after  his  long  day's  work, 
in  his  old  home  among  the  stately  trees  planted  by  his 
own  hand  in  Williamstown.  I  was  not  a  little  irritated 
by  my  first  interview  with  Professor  Bascom;  I  had 
carried  to  him  a  theme  for  criticism;  I  thought  it  a 
meritorious  performance,  but  his  blue  pencil  seriously 
disfigured  it.  I  went  away  much  exasperated,  but  on 
looking  it  over,  I  had  to  confess  that  the  points  were 
well  taken.  Of  that  just  and  penetrating  judgment  I 
gradually  learned  to  avail  myself ;  before  the  end  of  the 
course,  respect  had  deepened  into  affection,  and  all  my 
life  long  my  debt  to  that  brave  and  veracious  soul 
has  been  growing.  The  score  of  volumes  of  which  Dr. 
Bascom  is  the  author  have  had  but  a  limited  circula- 
tion ;  but  there  are  few  books  of  the  last  half-century, 
dealing  with  applications  of  philosophy  to  life,  which 
are  better  worth  knowing. 

College  life  in  that  time  was  very  simple.  The  college 
buildings  were  plainness  itself,  wholly  devoid  of  archi- 
tectural pretensions ;  the  furniture  of  most  of  the  rooms 
was  far  from  luxurious ;  the  expense  of  living  was  light. 


COLLEGE  DAYS  75 

My  board,  in  a  club,  the  first  terra,  cost  me  two  dollars 
and  thirty  cents  a  week ;  it  never  exceeded  two  dollars 
and  seventy-five  cents  a  week.  The  entire  expense  of 
my  college  course,  for  the  three  years,  including  cloth- 
ing, was  less  than  nine  hundred  dollars.  Several  of  the 
students  who  boarded  themselves,  in  their  own  rooms, 
brought  the  cost  far  within  that  figure. 

Several  Greek-letter  fraternities  were  flourishing,  and 
there  was  an  anti-secret  confederation  which  made  war 
upon  them,  but  was  quite  as  clannish  as  they  were.  None 
of  these  societies  had  houses  of  their  own ;  they  were 
content  with  humble  quarters,  which  they  rented  in 
private  houses,  or  in  lofts  over  village  stores. 

A  large  place  in  the  life  of  the  college  was  taken  by  the 
two  rival  literary  societies,  —  the  Philologian  and  the 
Philot('chnian,  —  to  the  one  or  the  other  of  which  every 
student  belonged.  These  societies  had  well-furnished 
rooms  in  one  of  the  dormitories,  with  libraries  of  three 
or  four  thousand  volumes  each.  Their  weekly  meetings 
were  events  of  no  little  interest  to  the  college  com- 
munity ;  the  progranmie  generally  included  one  or  two 
original  orations,  a  debate,  sometimes  a  poem,  an  essay 
or  two,  and  the  report  of  the  censor  upon  the  perform- 
ance of  the  previous  meeting.  The  two  societies  were 
united  in  the  Adelphic  Union,  which  gave  three  or  four 
debates  or  exhibitions  annually,  in  the  chapel  or  the 
village  church. 

The  summer  vacation  was  short,  not  more  than  five 
or  six  weeks,  and  there  was  a  long  winter  vacation, 
beginning  at  Thanksgiving  and  continuing  into  January, 
that  students  who  were  supporting  themselves  might 


76  RECOLLECTIONS 

teach  in  the  winter  terms  of  country  schools.  All  my 
winters  were  thus  employed. 

Of  the  men  in  my  time  some  names  are  well  known. 
First  among  them  was  Garfield,  of  the  class  of  '56,  who 
was  a  senior  when  my  class  were  freshmen,  and  whom, 
therefore,  I  did  not  personally  know.  The  fame  of  him, 
however,  was  large  when  I  entered  college.  He  had  dis- 
tinguished himself  as  debater  and  orator;  there  were 
many  reminiscences  of  his  brilliant  performances  in  the 
Logian  forum  and  on  the  chapel  stage.  Wlien  my  class 
graduated,  he  returned  and  took  his  second  degree, 
delivering  a  "master's  oration"  on  our  Commencement 
stage.  He  had  taken  to  himself  a  wife,  who  accompanied 
him  to  the  scene  of  his  former  triumphs,  and  proudly 
witnessed  his  induction  into  the  new  honors.  He  was 
then  President  of  Hiram  College,  in  Ohio,  and  must  then 
have  been  a  candidate  for  the  state  senate  at  Colum- 
bus, to  which,  in  October  of  that  year,  he  was  chosen. 
He  was  a  fine,  strong  young  fellow,  with  a  ruddy  face, 
a  massive  head,  a  cordial  manner,  and  an  air  of  master- 
ship. The  hour  that  I  spent  with  him  on  this  occasion 
gave  me  a  large  sense  of  his  power.  Few  who  knew  him 
in  those  days  were  surprised  at  his  swift  ascent  to  the 
places  of  command. 

In  my  own  class,  the  man  who  was  soonest  to  obtain 
distinction  was  the  youngest  man  in  the  class,  Ranald 
Slidell  Mackenzie.  He  came  to  college  a  mere  lad  of 
fifteen,  in  a  roundabout;  he  had  a  slight  lisp  and 
was  extremely  shy ;  but  he  was  a  good  scholar,  and  a 
thoroughly  likable  boy.  He  was  the  son  of  Commodore 
Alexander  Slidell  Mackenzie,  the  distinguished  naval 


COLLEGE  DAYS  77 

officer  and  author,  whose  name  had  been  made  famous 
by  the  manner  in  which  he  had  dealt,  fourteen  years 
before,  with  a  mutiny  on  the  brig  Somers,  of  which 
he  was  commander.  The  ringleader  of  this  mutiny 
was  a  youth  named  Spencer,  son  of  John  C.  Spencer, 
then  Secretary  of  War.  After  a  brief  trial  on  shipboard, 
Spencer  and  two  others  were  hanged  to  the  yardarm.  It 
was  a  curious  fact  that  a  kinsman  of  Spencer's,  Walter 
DeForest  Day,  was  also  a  classmate  of  mine,  and  that 
Mackenzie  and  Day  were  members  of  the  same  Greek 
letter  fraternity,  and  close  friends.  Mackenzie  did  not 
finish  his  course  in  Williams.  In  the  middle  of  our 
junior  year  he  received,  through  the  influence  of  his 
uncle.  Senator  Slidell,  of  Louisiana,  an  appointment  to 
West  Point,  from  which  he  graduated  with  high  rank  in 
1862,  and  immediately  entered  the  Union  army.  Of  his 
splendid  work  as  a  soldier  the  records  of  the  service  tell 
abundantly.  He  was  shot  to  pieces  again  and  again,  but 
he  always  managed  to  pull  himself  together  and  get  back 
into  the  field  very  speedily.  "Among  those  who  dis- 
tinguished themselves,"  says  Sheridan's  dispatch  after 
Cedar  Creek,  "was  Colonel  Mackenzie,  twice  wounded, 
but  refused  to  leave  the  field."  At  Five  Forks  he  was 
brevetted  major-general  on  the  field  for  gallantry,  and 
it  was  he  who  outran  Lee  to  Lynchburg,  and  checked 
the  final  retreat  of  the  Confederate  army. 

Two  of  our  best-known  magazine  editors,  Mr.  Henry 
M.  .\Iden,  of  "Harper's  Monthly,"  and  Mr.  Horace  E. 
Scudder,  of  the  "Atlantic,"  were  contemporaries  of  mine 
at  Williams.  Alden's  forte  was  metaphysics;  he  was 
supposed  to  be  occupied  mainly  with  interests  purely 


78  RECOLLECTIONS 

transcendental,  absorbed  in  investigating  the  "Thing- 
ness of  the  Here" ;  and  if  the  Messrs.  Harper  had  come 
to  Wilhamstown  inquiring  for  a  young  man  who  would 
be  a  skillful  purveyor  of  short  stories  and  poems  and 
sketches  for  a  popular  magazine,  the  last  man  to  whom 
they  would  have  been  sent  was  Henry  Mills  Alden.  Nor 
is  it  probable  that  our  veteran  managing  editor  ever 
dreamed,  at  that  day,  of  the  kind  of  occupation  in 
which  he  was  destined  to  spend  his  years  and  to  render 
to  the  world  a  service  so  high  and  fine.  Just  how  Alden 
ever  got  down  from  cloudland  to  Franklin  Square  I 
have  never  been  able  to  find  out,  but  it  is  well  for  the 
world  that  he  came,  and  perhaps  the  world  has  been 
the  gainer  by  his  early  residence  in  cloudland.  We 
get  our  best  training  for  work  in  this  world  by  living 
above  it. 

As  for  Scudder,  whether  he  ever  dreamed  of  editing 
the  "Atlantic  Monthly,"  I  know  not;  he  might, for  his 
pen  had  a  dainty  nib,  even  then ;  we  counted  him  one 
of  our  most  graceful  writers ;  what  he  wrote  had  an  air 
of  distinction  and  refinement  to  which  undergraduate 
prose  does  not  often  attain.  The  "Atlantic,"  in  those 
days,  was  in  its  pristine  glory.  Its  life  began  in  Scud- 
der's  senior  year,  and  every  number,  with  possible  con- 
tributions from  Emerson  or  Longfellow  or  Hawthorne 
or  Lowell  or  Whittier,  and  with  "The  Autocrat  of  the 
Breakfast-Table"  running  its  bright  career,  was  an  event 
in  our  little  college  community.  How  we  canvassed 
those  first  numbers,  guessing  the  authorship  of  the  con- 
tributions, all  of  which  were  anonymous,  and  glorying 
in  the  new  light  that  had  arisen  upon  American  letters  I 


COLLEGE  DAYS  79 

Scudder  was  a  shy  and  modest  fellow ;  I  doubt  if  he 
ever  conceived  of  climbing  into  Lowell's  seat. 

Both  Alden  and  Scudder  practiced  for  their  promo- 
tions by  editing  the  "Williams  Quarterly."  I  have  six 
volumes  of  that  stately  periodical,  and  a  comparison  of 
it  with  undergraduate  publications  of  the  present  day 
enforces  the  conclusion  that  the  intellectual  life  was  a 
larger  concern  in  college  fifty  years  ago  than  it  is  to-day. 
We  were,  indeed,  so  unfortunate  as  to  have  few  interests 
which  were  not  intellectual.  Athletics  were  not  yet ;  we 
sometimes  kicked  a  football  rather  aimlessly  about  the 
campus,  never  having  seen  a  football  game ;  we  played, 
among  ourselves,  an  occasional  game  of  what  we  called 
baseball  —  class  against  class ;  and  in  our  senior  year 
we  had  one  match  game  with  Amlierst ;  but  the  interest 
in  athletic  sports  was  a  negligible  quantity.  Some  of 
our  more  adventurous  spirits  found  vent  for  their  sur- 
plus force  in  natural  history  expeditions  to  Newfound- 
land and  South  America,  and  an  occasional  picnic  at 
Lanesboro  Pond,  or  a  tramp  to  the  top  of  Grcylock, 
gave  zest  to  life.  But  for  the  most  part,  the  subjects 
which  claimed  our  attention  were  those  which  had  some 
reference  to  the  work  of  the  college.  The  rivalry  for  col- 
lege honors  was  keen ;  every  man's  chances  of  getting  on 
to  the  "Moonlight," — the  prize  rhetorical  contest, — 
or  to  the  "Junior  Exhibition,"  or  to  the  Commencement 
stage,  were  freely  canvassed  by  every  other  man ;  who 
was  the  best  Grecian,  the  best  Latinist,  the  best  mathe- 
matician, the  strongest  writer,  the  finest  speaker  in  any 
class,  was  a  question  on  which  dififerences  of  opinion 
were  freely  expressed. 


80  RECOLLECTIONS 

College  music  at  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century 
was  not  of  a  high  order.  At  Yale  and  Harvard  there  had 
been  some  singing ;  in  the  fresh- water  colleges  the  reper- 
toire of  the  singers  was  scanty.  At  Williams,  in  my 
sophomore  year,  two  or  three  old  Latin  songs  were  occa- 
sionally sung,  —  ''Gaudeamus  Igitur,"  to  a  good  Ger- 
man choral ;  "Integer  Vitae,"  to  Flemming's  strong  set- 
ting; and  "Lauriger  Horatius,"  to  the  air  since  better 
known  as  "  Maryland,  my  Maryland,"  For  the  rest  there 
was  a  meagre  collection  of  nonsense  songs,  like  the  lines, 
set  to  Rousseau's  "Greenville,"  "Go  tell  Aunt  Nancy 
her  old  gray  goose  is  dead,"  and  several  drinking  songs, 
like  "Landlords,  fill  your  flowing  bowls,"  and  "Roll, 
roll,  rolling  home!"  Longfellow's  "Psalm  of  Life"  was 
also  chanted  to  a  rollicking  melody  with  the  refrain  of 
"Cocachelunk-chelunk-chelaly,"  which  was  a  little  like 
dressing  up  the  Apollo  Belvidere  in  a  sweater  and  tennis 
shoes.  Occasion  for  song  had  also  been  developed  by 
the  Biennial  Examinations,  which  had  been  introduced 
not  long  before  my  day.  After  two  weeks  of  written 
examinations  on  all  the  subjects  of  the  first  two  years, 
the  Sophomores  were  apt  to  feel  the  need  of  hilarity; 
and  they  were  wont  to  serenade  the  professors  of  whom 
they  were  taking  leave,  and  to  celebrate  the  event  in  a 
supper  at  the  Mansion  House.  For  these  festive  occa- 
sions songs  were  written,  and  some  of  them  were  good 
enough  to  be  preserved  and  transmitted. 

During  my  junior  year  one  or  two  men  came  to  us 
from  Yale,  bringing  some  of  the  nonsense  songs  which 
were  current  there,  and  groups  began  to  gather  in  the 
summer  evenings  on  the  benches  in  front  of  East  College 


COLLEGE  DAYS  81 

for  the  singing  of  these  new  songs.  It  must  have  been 
early  in  my  senior  year  that  a  musical  organization  was 
formed  which  called  itself  "The  Mendelssohn  Society," 
of  which  I  was  made  the  conductor.  This  society  made 
some  ambitious  attempts  at  glees  and  male  choruses, 
giving,  in  the  course  of  the  year,  a  few  concerts  in  the 
surrounding  towns.  By  these  various  measures  so  much 
interest  in  college  singing  was  awakened  that  I  ven- 
tured to  publish,  at  the  close  of  our  senior  year,  a  collec- 
tion of  the  "Songs  of  WiUiams."  Most  of  the  songs  were 
written  for  the  collection,  and  many  of  them  were,  of 
course,  lyrically  defective;  it  is  not  an  easy  thing  to 
write  a  singable  song.  But  I  find  in  the  latest  Williams 
song-book  fourteen  numbers  from  my  old  compilation. 
How  many  of  them  are  sung  in  these  days  I  do  not 
know.  One  of  these  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  write.  I 
had  been  wishing  that  I  might  write  a  song  which  could 
be  sung  at  some  of  our  exhibitions;  and  one  winter 
morning,  walking  down  Bee  Hill,  the  lilt  of  the  chorus 
of  ^'The  Mountains"  came  to  me.  I  had  a  little  music- 
paper  in  my  room  in  the  village,  and  on  my  arrival  I 
wrote  down  the  notes.  Then  I  cast  about  for  words  to  fit 
them,  and  the  refrain,  "The  Mountains,  the  Mountains ! " 
suggested  itself.  I  wrote  the  melody  of  the  stanza  next, 
and  fitted  the  verses  to  it.  We  were  soon  to  have  a  pub- 
lic debate,  in  the  Chapel,  for  which  the  Mendelssohn 
Society  was  to  furnish  the  music ;  we  learned  this  song 
and  sang  it  on  that  occasion.  The  next  morning  I  heard 
the  melody  whistled  by  students  in  the  halls  and  by 
town  boys  in  the  streets;  it  was  evident  that  it  had 
caught  on.  That  it  would  be  sung  by  fifty  college  classes, 


82  RECOLLECTIONS 

and  become  the  accepted  College  Song,  I  could  not,  of 
course,  have  imagined.  It  is  a  simple  and  catchy  melody, 
and  the  words  serve  to  connect  it  with  that  which  is  most 
impressive  and  permanent  in  the  environment  of  college 
life  at  Williamstown,  and  so  it  has  established  itself  as 
one  of  the  traditions  of  the  college.  I  know  not  what 
greater  grace  could  be  given  to  any  man  than  to  become, 
for  generations,  the  voice  of  the  happy  loyalty  of  the 
men  of  such  a  college  as  Williams.  He  would  be  a  low 
man  who  would  be  proud  of  such  a  thing,  but  he  needs 
not  be  ashamed  to  confess  that  it  has  given  him  not  a 
little  unalloyed  pleasure. 

A  friendship  of  the  greatest  value  to  me  was  that 
which  I  formed  during  my  college  life  with  Samuel 
Bowles  and  Josiah  G.  Holland,  then  editors  of  the 
Springfield  "Republican."  My  newspaper  knack  easily 
gained  for  me  the  place  of  college  reporter  for  the 
"Republican,"  and  after  a  while  I  ventured  occa- 
sionally to  send  a  poem  or  a  story.  One  day  I  found, 
in  the  "Republican,"  a  poem  of  mine,  which  I  had 
written  for  delivery  at  a  meeting  of  the  Logian  Society, 
printed  with  an  editorial  comment  that  quite  took  my 
breath  away.  It  was  the  first  recognition  which  had 
ever  come  to  me  from  a  literary  source  whose  verdict 
was  entitled  to  respect.  How  much  it  signified  I  shall 
never  be  able  to  tell.  Any  one  who  has  committed  his 
life  to  a  venture  which  has  been,  hitherto,  wholly  prob- 
lematical, is  apt  to  be  stirred  by  the  first  clear  token 
of  success.  What  these  words  told  me  was  simply  this, 
that  there  was  good  hope  for  me.  I  should  wrong  my- 
self if  I  confessed  that  they  nourished  my  self-conceit; 


COLLEGE  DAYS  83 

they  made  me  humble ;  but  they  lifted  up  my  heart 
with  a  great  thankfulness. 

Dr.  Holland  was  then  writing  his  "Titcomb's  Let- 
ters," his  "Gold  Foil,"  and  his  "Bittersweet,"  and  his 
writings  had  a  great  vogue,  not  only  in  the  columns  of 
the  "Republican,"  but  in  the  book  form  in  which  they 
were  rapidly  appearing.  He  was  not  the  finest  of  our 
essayists,  nor  the  greatest  of  our  poets;  but  there  was  a 
wholesome  good  sense  and  a  sound  and  sweet  human- 
ity in  him  that  greatly  endeared  him  to  a  multitude 
of  American  readers.  How  considerate  and  generous  a 
friend  he  was  to  me,  in  the  day  when  I  needed  friends, 
I  could  not  fail  to  bear  witness. 

Mr.  Bowles  was  a  man  of  keener  wit  and  more  brilliant 
parts;  to  many  persons  he  seemed  to  have  a  harsh 
temper  and  a  biting  tongue ;  but  he,  too,  was  quick  in 
his  appreciations,  and  ready  and  prompt  to  lend  a  hand 
to  those  in  whom  his  interest  was  enlisted.  During  my 
senior  year  I  visited  Si)ringfield  and  spent  a  Sunday 
with  these  two  editors,  and  that  was  the  beginning  of 
a  friendship  that  death  has  interrupted,  but  has  not 
broken.  For  both  of  them  it  was  my  privilege  to  speak, 
after  death,  the  last  words  of  memory  and  affection. 
I  think  they  both  knew  that  the  boy  to  whom,  in  his 
college  days,  they  gave  a  strong  right  hand,  was  never 
forgetful  nor  ungrateful. 

Commencement,  in  those  days,  was  a  high  festival. 
It  drew  to  the  village  all  the  people  of  the  countrj^side, 
and  there  were  booths  for  gingerbread  and  root  beer, 
and  sellers  of  whips  and  toy  balloons,  and  the  usual 
assortment  of  fakirs.   Few  of  the  hundreds  of  country 


84  RECOLLECTIONS 

people  who  flocked  to  the  show  paid  much  attention  to 
the  graduating  exercises;  the  occasion  simply  supplied 
them  with  an  out-of-door  holiday. 

The  Commencement  occurred  during  the  first  week  in 
August,  and  the  day  was  sacred  to  the  graduating  class. 
Out  of  a  total  of  fifty  or  sixty,  from  thirty  to  thirty-five 
men  presented  original  orations.  The  speaking  began 
in  the  village  church  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  continued  until  noon;  after  an  intermission 
of  two  hours  for  dinner,  the  floodgates  of  oratory  were 
reopened,  and  it  was  after  four  o'clock  before  the  vale- 
dictorian made  his  final  bow  to  the  applauding  crowd. 
With  such  powers  of  endurance  were  the  audiences  of 
those  days  endowed ! 

It  was  a  heavy  heart  that  I  carried  out  of  that  valley 
when  the  Commencement  festivities  were  ended,  in  the 
summer  of  1859.  I  had  tarried  for  a  day  after  my  class- 
mates were  gone ;  and  I  was  alone  on  the  train  that  bore 
me  away  to  the  westward  that  August  afternoon.  I  sat 
at  the  window  and  looked  backward  till  Greylock  and 
Prospect  were  shut  from  sight,  and  I  knew  that  the  cur- 
tain had  gone  down  on  the  happiest  time  that  I  had  ever 
known.  Not  that  there  were  no  flies  in  the  amber,  for 
there  were  blunders  and  faults  enough  to  recall ;  but  the 
work  had  been  congenial  and  the  friendships  inspiring, 
and  there  had  been  enough  of  achievement  to  kindle 
hope.  To  turn  my  back  on  all  that  care-free  college  life 
and  face  an  unknown  world  cost  a  pang.  I  do  not  think 
I  have  ever  had  the  same  sense  of  the  closing  of  a  door 
upon  the  past  as  that  which  I  experienced  when  the  train 
carried  me  homeward  from  dear  old  WilliamstoTMi. 


CH.\PTER  VI 

PUTTING   ON   THE   HARNESS 

Hark,  hark,  a  voice  amid  the  quiet  intense ! 

It  is  thy  duty,  waiting  thee  without. 

Rise  from  thy  knees  in  hope,  the  half  of  doubt. 
A  hand  doth  pull  thee  —  it  is  Providence. 
Open  thy  door  straightway  and  get  thee  hence; 

Go  forth  into  the  tumult  and  the  shout ; 

Work,  love,  with  workers,  lovers,  all  about. 

George  Macdoncdd. 

The  end  of  college  life  is  apt  to  bring  some  sense 
of  depression,  but  for  me  there  was  no  time  for  regrets 
or  deplorings.  Something  to  do  must  be  found,  without 
delay.  Half-a-dozen  possibilities  were  in  sight;  but  the 
three  or  four  weeks  in  which  I  was  canvassing  them 
seemed  a  very  long  time.  By  the  end  of  that  period  I 
had  contracted  to  teach  the  principal  public  school  in 
Owego,  and  had  entered  upon  a  life  of  continuous  labor. 
Since  that  day  I  have  never  been  "out  of  a  job"  for  a 
minute.  Always  I  have  been  somebody's  hired  man, 
under  contract  for  service.  There  have  been  no  pauses 
or  interludes  between  occupations ;  I  have  never  had  a 
chance  to  know  how  it  would  seem  to  have  nothing  to 
do.  \Miether  that  day  will  ever  come,  I  do  not  know ;  I 
rather  hope  that  I  may,  one  of  these  days,  get  a  little 
time  out  of  harness,  but  I  am  not  sure  that  I  shall  know 
what  to  do  with  it. 

Schoolmastering,  however,  was  not  my  trade.  The 
big  school  —  seventy  or  eighty  pupils  in  one  room, 


86  RECOLLECTIONS 

where  all  my  teaching  had  to  be  done  —  worried  me. 
The  instruction  was  a  pleasure,  and  there  was  no  sense 
of  failure  in  the  discipline,  but  the  constant  nervous 
strain  wore  upon  me,  and  I  began  to  doubt  whether  it 
would  be  possible  for  me  to  earn,  by  this  calling,  the 
funds  needed  for  my  professional  studies. 

In  the  meantime  I  was  enjoying  a  most  delightful 
companionship  with  a  young  man  who  had  recently 
been  called  to  the  pastorate  of  our  Owego  Congrega- 
tional church,  the  Reverend  Moses  Coit  Tyler.  He  was 
a  graduate  of  Yale  and  Andover,  and  was  onl)^  a  year 
older  than  I.  We  occupied  adjoining  rooms  in  the  same 
boarding-house,  and  his  friendship  brought  into  my  life 
a  most  stimulating  influence.  With  him  I  began  at  once 
reading  along  theological  lines;  and  at  his  request  I 
preached  my  first  sermon  in  his  pulpit,  not  many  weeks 
after  my  return  from  college.  It  was  also  at  his  rather 
urgent  instance  that  I  presented  myself  before  the  Sus- 
quehanna Association  of  Congregational  Ministers,  and 
was  licensed  by  them  to  preach,  Mr.  Tyler's  expectation 
being  that  I  would  exercise  my  gifts  in  schoolhouses 
and  country  meeting-houses  as  occasion  offered.  That 
was,  probably,  a  very  irregular  procedure;  the  fact  that 
the  Reverend  Thomas  K.  Beecher,  of  Elmira,  was  mod- 
erator of  the  Association  may  help  to  explain  it.  Mr. 
Beecher,  to  put  it  mildly,  was  not  a  stickler  for  eccle- 
siastical proprieties.  My  year  in  theology,  under  Mark 
Hopkins,  may  have  given  me  some  small  outfit  for  such 
an  examination,  which,  as  I  cannot  help  remembering, 
was  not  a  shining  exhibition  of  theological  proficiency. 

My  certificate  of  licensure  is  in  Mr.  Beecher' s  hand- 


PUTTING  ON  THE  HARNESS  87 

writing.  The  scribe  of  the  Association,  who  was  an 
illiterate  blunderer,  had  written  it  and  handed  it  to  the 
moderator  to  sign ;  he  glanced  at  it,  and  suddenly  said : 
"What's  this?  'The  Susquehanna  Association,  having 
examined  [So  and  so,  in  such  and  such  things]  com- 
mends him  to  the  churches  of  Chr,'  at  the  end  of  the 
line,  with  a  hyphen,  'ist'  at  the  beginning  of  the  next 
line!  Is  Christ  divided?  Give  me  a  pen  and  let  me 
write  a  certificate  that  will  not  disgrace  this  body." 

It  was  not  the  first  time  I  had  met  Mr.  Beecher.  He 
was  a  familiar  and  picturesque  personage  in  central 
New  York  through  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  His  ministry  in  Elmira  began  when  I  was  in 
the  printing-office,  and  he  frequently  came  to  Owego  to 
preach  or  lecture.  Once,  when  I  was  in  the  Academy,  he 
came,  at  my  request,  to  speak  at  an  Academy  exhibition, 
and  on  that  occasion  he  drew  me  into  his  room  at  the 
hotel,  and  talked  to  me  until  a  late  hour,  probing  my 
purposes,  and  offering  me  counsel.  He  seemed  most 
anxious  that  I  should  not  venture  into  the  ministry 
unwarned  of  its  difficulties  and  discouragements.  Above 
all,  I  must  be  sure  of  myself,  and  must  stand  on  my 
own  feet.  "  ^Vhen  I  started  out,"  he  said,  "  a  great  many 
people  seemed  to  think  that  I  would  sail  in  the  wake  of 
my  relations,  availing  myself  of  their  popularity ;  I  have 
tried  to  let  them  see  that  I  don't  propose  to  be  the  copy 
or  the  echo  of  anybody  else."  Nobody  ever  accused  him 
of  that.  He  was  a  most  original  and  independent  char- 
acter, often  offending  against  conventions,  and  traveling 
wide  of  the  beaten  paths,  but  full  of  warm  humanity  and 
spiritual  enthusiasm.   His  slender  but  graceful  figure, 


88  RECOLLECTIONS 

his  expressive  countenance,  and  his  S3niipathetic  voice 
gave  him  exceptional  power  as  a  speaker ;  I  have  heard 
from  him  more  persuasive  and  convincing  speech  than  I 
ever  heard  from  his  more  famous  brother. 

It  so  happened  that  there  came  to  the  meeting  of  the 
Susquehanna  Association,  which  had  so  rashly  turned 
me  loose  upon  the  churches,  a  supplication  from  a  dis- 
couraged church,  just  over  the  Pennsylvania  line,  in 
Le  Raysville,  that  some  one  be  sent  to  help  their  minister 
in  a  series  of  special  services,  by  means  of  which  they 
hoped  to  resuscitate  the  enterprise.  The  Association, 
again  throwing  discretion  to  the  winds,  advised  the 
church  to  send  for  me ;  and  I,  with  no  more  prudence, 
resigned  my  school  and  accepted  the  invitation.  This 
was  early  in  January,  1860.  Arriving  in  Le  Raysville 
on  Wednesday  afternoon,  after  a  stage-ride  of  twenty 
miles,  I  found  myself  announced  to  preach  Wednesday, 
Thursday,  and  Friday  evenings,  and  twice  on  the  com- 
ing Sunday.  For  eight  weeks  this  programme  was  ex- 
tended, —  five  week-day  services  and  two  or  three  Sun- 
day services.  That  it  was  very  crude  preaching  hardly 
needs  to  be  said ;  the  theology  was  raw,  and  the  rhetoric 
was  ragged;  the  only  thing  that  rescued  it  from  con- 
tempt was  the  saving  grace  of  a  youthful  enthusiasm 
and  a  real  wish  to  help  men  find  the  way  to  a  better 
life.  Far  more  was  done  in  the  daily  personal  contact 
with  old  and  young;  and  the  result  of  the  effort  was 
not  only  a  considerable  addition  to  the  membership 
of  the  church,  but  a  deepening  of  my  conviction  that  my 
best  way  to  prepare  for  the  ministry  was  in  the  work  of 
the  ministry.  After  preaching  for  a  year  or  two  I  might 


PUTTING  ON  THE  HARNESS  89 

hope  to  step  aside  for  a  year  or  two  of  theological  study. 
That,  as  things  had  turned  out,  seemed  to  be  the  prac- 
ticable programme. 

After  the  work  at  Le  Raysville  was  finished,  invita- 
tions came  to  preach  in  three  or  four  vacant  churches 
of  the  neighborhood,  and  while  I  was  considering  these, 
a  call  came  from  Brooklyn,  and^by  the  beginning  of  May 
I  was  in  charge  of  an  organization  which  styled  itself 
the  First  Congregational  Methodist  Church  of  that  city. 

I  am  entirely  sure  now  that  this  was  a  place  where 
angels  would  have  feared  to  tread;  that  was  why  I 
rushed  in.  A  more  foolhardy  undertaking  it  would  be 
difficult  to  imagine.  The  church  was  the  fruit  of  a  seces- 
sion from  the  Methodist  body,  arising  in  a  quarrel  about 
a  minister ;  it  had  a  small  membership,  with  few  men 
of  substance,  and  an  enormous  debt  incurred  in  the 
erection  of  its  edifice ;  it  had  no  natural  constituency ; 
the  attempt  of  an  untrained  boy  to  carry  such  a  load 
is  not  more  astonishing  than  the  fatuity  of  the  people 
who  asked  him  to  undertake  it.  The  fact  that  there  was  a 
theological  seminary  within  easy  reach,  of  whose  advan- 
tages I  might  hope  to  avail  myself,  was  one  reason  for 
accepting  this  offer.  But  that  was  a  vain  expectation. 

Brookljm,  in  1860,  was  a  comfortable  city  of  about 
275,000  people;  it  had  not  quite  outgrown  its  bucolic 
traditions,  and  the  Dutch  flavor  in  the  municipal  life 
was  quite  perceptible.  It  was  the  City  of  Churches,  and 
there  was  no  lack  of  them ;  Mr.  Beecher  was,  of  course, 
the  star  of  the  first  magnitude  in  the  ecclesiastical  firma- 
ment, but  Dr.  Storrs  and  Dr.  Cuyler  and  Dr.  Bartlett 
and  others  were  also  shining  lights.  In  the  midst  of  such 


90  RECOLLECTIONS 

a  galaxy,  the  rushlight  is  not  likely  to  miss  the  fact  of  its 
own  insignificance.  It  seemed,  indeed,  a  hopeless  busi- 
ness, once  it  was  fairly  on  my  hands;  but  the  people 
were  kind,  and  I  gave  them  the  best  that  was  in  me. 

The  city,  from  the  first  day,  was  a  thing  stupendous 
and  overpowering,  a  mighty  monster,  with  portentous 
energies ;  the  sense  of  its  power  to  absorb  human  person- 
alities and  to  shape  human  destinies  was  often  vivid  and 
painful.  To  one  who  had  nursed  his  fancies  for  the 
greater  part  of  his  life  in  the  solitude  of  a  back  country 
farm,  and  who  had  breasted  no  currents  of  life  stronger 
than  those  which  meander  through  the  streets  of  a  quiet 
village,  the  contact  with  the  strenuous  life  of  the  great 
city  was  a  revelation.  One  was  standing  in  the  centre 
of  a  galvanic  field,  with  lines  of  force  crossing  each  other 
in  every  direction.  Everything  was  alive,  yet  there 
was  a  vivid  sense  of  the  impersonality  and  brutality  of 
the  whole  movement,  of  the  lack  of  coordinating  intel- 
ligence. The  Brooklyn  ferries  and  street-cars  were  then 
a  quiet  scene  compared  with  the  volcanic  torrents  of 
humanity  at  the  bridges  and  in  the  subways  in  these 
days ;  but  the  amount  of  titanic  energy  which  was  even 
then  finding  vent  in  the  life  of  what  we  now  call  the 
Greater  New  York  was  enough  to  start  a  great  many 
queries  about  how  all  this  might  be  wisely  handled,  and 
whereunto  it  was  likely  to  grow.  One  could  not  help 
wondering  whether  in  liberating  the  force  which  gathers 
men  into  cities,  and  equipping  it  with  steam  and  elec- 
tricity, a  power  had  not  been  created  which  was  stronger 
than  the  intelligence  which  seeks  to  control  it ;  whether 
such  aggregations  of  humanity,  with  wills  no  better 


PUTTING  ON  THE  HARNESS  91 

socialized  than  those  of  the  average  nineteenth-century 
American,  are  not  by  their  own  action  self-destructive. 
I  do  not  mean  that  I  reasoned  out  this  query,  at  that 
time;  but  some  sense  of  the  appalling  nature  of  the 
municipal  problem  was  certainly  present  with  me.  It 
signified  much  to  me  that  I  was  forced  to  meet,  on 
the  threshold  of  my  ministry,  what  Dr.  Strong  calls 
"the  challenge  of  the  city."  I  could  not  answer  it  then, 
and  I  cannot  now ,  it  has  been  a  lifelong  problem. 

It  was  not,  however,  to  municipal  politics  that  the 
thought  of  the  people  was  then  turning.  Other  and  what 
seemed  more  momentous  questions  were  forcing  them- 
selves upon  our  attention.  These  were  the  days  when 
opinion  was  moving  swiftly  toward  the  decision  which 
plunged  the  nation  into  the  Civil  War.  Buchanan's 
administration  had  resulted  in  consolidating  the  anti- 
slavery  sentiment  of  the  North;  the  struggle  on  the 
plains  of  Kansas  had  revealed  the  increasing  purpose  of 
the  northern  people  to  prevent  the  further  extension 
of  slavery ;  and  the  great  debate  between  Lincoln  and 
Douglas  had  practically  completed  the  education  of  the 
people  of  the  free  states.  Reports  of  that  debate  had 
been  widely  circulated;  many  of  us  had  read  all  the 
speeches,  and  had  found  in  the  invincible  moral  sense 
of  Lincohi  the  word  of  the  hour.  When  I  went  back  to 
Owego,  after  my  first  visit  to  Brooklyn,  to  close  up  my 
affairs  and  prepare  for  removal  to  the  city,  the  Chicago 
convention  was  in  session;  every  day  brought  excit- 
ing news ;  and  it  was  on  my  return  to  the  city,  as  the 
train  stopped  at  Narrowsburg  or  Port  Jervis,  that  the 
news  came  of  Lincoln's  nomination.  Many  of  the  New 


92  RECOLLECTIONS 

Yorkers  looked  glum;  Mr.  Seward's  state  had  been 
backing  him  heavily ;  but  my  cap  went  up  in  the  air 
with  a  shout ;  the  thing  seemed  too  good  to  be  true. 

So  it  came  about  that  my  first  year  in  the  ministry 
was  destined  to  be  a  momentous  year.  The  free-state 
forces  were  rallying  for  an  aggressive  campaign,  and 
there  was  a  note  of  confidence  in  their  appeal ;  the  split 
in  the  other  party  gave  them  good  ground  for  hope. 
The  Wide- Awake  movement  was  spreading ;  torch-light 
processions,  and  rallies  in  the  wigwams,  filled  the  sum- 
mer nights  with  a  boisterous  enthusiasm. 

Religious  circles  were  less  moved  by  this  commo- 
tion than  might  have  been  expected ;  for  the  most  part, 
the  churches  kept  on  the  even  tenor  of  their  ways.  Mr. 
Beecher,  now  and  then,  shot  out  a  shaft  of  satire  or 
invective;  but  there  was  very  little  reporting  of  ser- 
mons, and  if  less  conspicuous  men  spoke  on  the  issues 
of  the  day,  few  outside  the  immediate  audience  were 
likely  to  hear  of  it.  There  was,  indeed,  much  solicitude, 
even  among  right-minded  people,  lest  the  pulpit  should 
be  desecrated  by  politics.  There  was  apt  to  be  in  every 
congregation  a  contingent  who  were  excessively  sensi- 
tive on  this  point,  and  who  were  wont  to  hear  the  voice 
of  political  agitation  in  the  most  obvious  Biblical  com- 
monplaces. I  remember  an  occasion  when  a  neighbor 
was  preaching  in  my  pulpit,  and  I  had  selected  James 
Montgomery's  hymn,  "Daughter  of  Zion,  from  the 
dust."  One  of  the  stanzas  of  that  hymn  is  a  versified 
paraphrase  of  a  passage  in  Isaiah,  respecting  the  return- 
ing exiles :  "I  will  say  to  the  north.  Give  up;  and  to  the 
south,  Keep  not  back."  The  rhymed  version  runs  thus: 


PUTTING  ON  THE  HARNESS  93 

Rebuild  thy  walls,  thy  bounds  enlarge, 

And  send  thy  heralds  forth  ; 
Say  to  the  South,  Give  up  thy  charge, 
And  keep  not  back,  O  North. 

My  neighbor  in  giving  out  the  hymn,  which  is  a  long 
one,  suggested  the  omission  of  this  stanza.  The  next  day 
there  appeared  in  the  daily  paper  an  enthusiastic  letter, 
praising  this  minister  for  having  rebuked  the  pastor 
of  the  church,  who  was  trying  to  foist  upon  the  congre- 
gation an  abolitionist  hjmin.  It  was  an  outrage,  he 
said,  to  stir  up  sectional  feeling  by  such  inflammatory 
words,  and  the  minister  who  had  put  down  this  sinister 
endeavor  was  worthy  of  all  commendation. 

One  sermon  which  was  preached  in  one  of  the  most 
conspicuous  pulpits  of  the  city,  during  that  summer, 
raised  some  excitement.  The  preacher  was  the  Reverend 
Henry  J.  Van  Dyke,  one  of  the  most  honored  and  influ- 
ential of  the  Presbyterian  pastors,  and  the  sermon  was  a 
closely-reasoned  and  forcible  argument  to  prove  that 
abolitionism  and  infidelity  were  synonymous  terms; 
that  no  man  could  be  an  abolitionist  without  being  an 
infidel.  The  argument,  of  course,  was  Scriptural ;  it  was 
easy  to  show  that  slavery  was  a  Biblical  institution ;  that 
the  holders  of  slaves  had  in  many  cases  been  inspired 
men ;  and  that  laws  under  the  imprimatur  of  Jehovah 
himself  had  enjoined  slavery;  this  was  a  demonstration 
that  God  had  made  Himself  responsible  for  the  institu- 
tion, and  that  opposition  to  it  was  rebellion  against  Him. 
The  logic  was  relentless ;  the  conclusion  was  one  of  many 
monstrous  results,  which,  upon  the  assumption  of  the 
inerrant  authority  of  the  whole  Scripture,  are  inescapa- 


94  RECOLLECTIONS 

ble.  It  was  tragical  to  see  a  man  of  the  acumen  of  Dr. 
Van  Dyke  writhing  in  the  coils  of  such  a  conception. 

The  summer  of  1860  was  uneventful.  As  the  prospect 
of  Lincoln's  election  grew  more  clear,  the  threats  of 
disunion  were  more  frequent  and  passionate,  but  they 
were  regarded,  for  the  most  part,  as  rhodomontade ; 
the  actual  rupture  of  the  national  bond  seemed  a  thing 
incredible. 

My  own  work  went  on  without  interruption  through 
the  summer;  most  of  the  churches,  in  those  days,  kept 
up  all  their  services ;  the  need  of  a  two  or  three  months' 
vacation  had  not  yet  been  discovered  by  many  of  them. 
In  the  course  of  the  autumn  my  church  escaped  from 
its  anomalous  independence,  and  entered  the  Congre- 
gational fellowship,  and  my  own  association  with  the 
ministers  of  that  communion  became  increasingly 
pleasant.  Those  courses  of  study  at  the  Union  Seminary 
on  which  I  had  been  fondly  counting  did  not,  however, 
materialize ;  two  sermons  a  week,  with  all  my  pastoral 
cares,  were  enough  to  occupy  my  time;  there  was  no 
space  for  systematic  study.  No  phenomenal  success 
could  be  reported  in  the  work  of  the  church ;  the  gains 
were  slow,  but  they  seemed  to  be  substantial;  on  the 
whole,  there  was  reason  for  encouragement. 

The  sixth  of  November  brought  the  eventful  day 
when  the  fate  of  the  nation  was  to  be  decided.  That 
evening  I  spent  in  Prin ting-House  Square,  New  York, 
watching  the  bulletins  on  the  Tribune  Building,  and  I 
did  not  return  to  my  lodgings  until  the  telegrams  had 
made  it  sure  that  Lincoln  was  elected.  What  a  night 
was  that,  my  countrymen!   And  who  that  had  been 


PUTTING  ON  THE  HARNESS  95 

living  eight  years  before,  and  breathing  the  political 
atmosphere  of  the  commonwealth  that  chose  Franklin 
Pierce  to  be  its  chief  magistrate,  could  have  believed 
that  the  same  nation  would  now  be  shouting  itself 
hoarse  over  the  choice  of  a  man  who  represented  what 
Abraham  Lincoln  stood  for? 

For  no  man  could  help  seeing  that  this  political  revo- 
lution registered  an  ethical  advance  in  the  American 
people.  There  had  come  about,  during  the  eight  years, 
a  change  in  the  moral  feelings  of  the  multitude.  Their 
ideals  had  been,  in  some  good  measure,  transformed; 
the  public  opinion  of  the  masses  held  a  larger  infusion 
of  altruistic  sentiment.  Their  attention  had  been  drawn 
to  the  question,  "Who  is  my  neighbor?"  and  they  had 
learned  to  answer  it  more  nearly  in  the  sense  of  the 
good  Samaritan. 

Such  changes  as  these  in  the  habitual  thoughts  of 
the  people,  in  their  ruling  ideas,  are  to  be  looked  for ;  the 
hope  of  the  world  is  in  them.  The  notion  that  human 
nature  is  a  fixed  quantity ;  that  men  always  act  from  the 
same  motives;  that  the  troglodyte  in  his  cave  and  the 
philanthropist  in  his  laboratory  respond  in  the  same 
way  to  the  same  moral  stimuli  is  sufficiently  absurd,  on 
the  face  of  it;  but  such  a  transformation  of  the  moral 
feelings  of  a  whole  population  as  occurred  in  the  eight 
years  of  which  we  are  speaking  ought  to  put  an  end  to 
all  such  pessimistic  reasoning.  ''Human  nature,"  says 
Arnold  Toynbee,  "is  not  always  the  same.  It  slowly 
changes,  and  is  modified  by  higher  ideals  and  wider  and 
deeper  conceptions  of  justice.  Men  have  forgotten  that 
though  it  is  impossible  to  change  the  nature  of  a  stone  or 


96  RECOLLECTIONS 

a  rock,  human  nature  is  pliable,  and  pliable  above  all 
to  nobler  ideas  and  to  a  truer  sense  of  justice."  The 
instance  to  which  Toynbee  points,  in  support  of  this 
contention,  is  "that  great  change  of  opinion  which  took 
place  in  England  with  regard  to  slavery."  ^  In  England, 
as  well  as  in  America,  the  entire  attitude  of  the  people 
upon  a  great  question  of  morals  was  changed  within  a 
generation. 

It  is  well  to  bear  such  facts  in  mind,  for  they  help  to 
show  that  the  function  of  the  prophet  and  the  moral 
teacher  is  not  superfluous ;  that  the  destiny  of  mankind 
is  not  wholly  shaped  by  physical  and  economic  forces ; 
that  Confucius  may  prove  to  be  as  much  of  an  empire 
builder  as  Alexander  or  Genghis  Khan  —  perhaps  a 
more  enduring  builder.  "If,"  says  Toynbee,  "such  a 
rapid  change  as  that  relating  to  slavery  could  take  place 
in  our  moral  ideas  within  the  last  hundred  years,  do 
you  not  think  it  possible  that  in  the  course  of  another 
hundred  years  English  employers  and  English  laborers 
may  act  upon  higher  notions  of  duty  and  higher  con- 
ceptions of  citizenship  than  they  do  now?"  Theories 
of  social  reform  which  rest  upon  the  skeptical  notion 
that  human  nature  is  irreformable  appear,  therefore,  to 
be  unscientific. 

The  verdict  of  the  North  was  decisive ;  what  would 
be  the  answer  of  the  South?  That  question  was  on  the 
mind  of  every  thoughtful  man  at  the  North,  when  he 
read  in  the  dispatches  of  November  7  the  news  of  Lin- 
coln's election.  And  there  were  not  many  among  us  who 
gave  the  correct  reply.  The  North  did  not  believe  that 

^  The  Industrial  Revolution,  p.  175 . 


PUTTING  ON  THE  HARNESS  97 

the  South  would  secede,  and  the  South  did  not  beheve 
that  the  North  would  fight  to  resist  secession.  A  tre- 
mendous disillusion  was  in  store  for  both  sections.  If 
the  North  had  taken  the  southern  threat  of  secession 
seriously,  would  not  strenuous  efforts  have  been  made 
to  patch  up  some  kind  of  compromise?  If  the  South 
had  known  that  the  North  would  have  an  army  of  half 
a  million  men  in  the  field  within  a  few  months,  would 
not  even  the  hot-headed  South  Carolinians  have  been  a 
little  less  precipitate  in  their  haste  to  fling  themselves 
out  of  the  Union?  Perhaps  not.  Perhaps  the  conflict 
was  irrepressible,  and  had  to  be  fought  out.  Perhaps  the 
vast  infidelity  of  the  nation  in  harboring  slavery  —  a 
crime  in  which  both  sections  were  implicated  —  had  to 
be  atoned  for  by  the  frightful  retribution  of  the  Civil 
War. 

I  doubt  if  there  were  many  men  in  either  section  who 
were  looking  for  war,  on  the  morning  of  the  seventh  of 
November.  But  our  optimism  was  rudely  shaken  before 
many  days.  On  the  tenth  of  November  the  Legislature 
of  South  Carolina  called  a  State  Convention  to  dissolve 
the  union  of  that  state  with  the  Federal  Government ; 
within  a  day  or  two  both  her  senators  at  Washington 
resigned  their  offices,  and  their  resignations  were  ac- 
cepted by  the  Legislature ;  and  steps  were  taken  at  once 
to  secure  a  similar  action  in  several  of  the  other  cotton 
states. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  these  ominous  and  exciting 
events  that  a  council  was  called  by  my  church  for  my 
ordination  to  the  ministry.  That  was  no  part  of  my 
own  plan ;  but  the  church  insisted  that  it  must  have  the 


98  RECOLLECTIONS 

services  of  a  fully  qualified  minister,  and  that  I  must 
accept  ordination.  The  council  convened  on  Novem- 
ber 15 ;  the  moderator  was  Dr.  Richard  S.  Storrs,  who 
gave  me  the  right  hand  of  fellowship ;  the  sermon  was 
preached  by  the  Reverend  William  Alvin  Bar  tie  tt,  and 
the  address  to  the  people  was  given  by  my  former  pastor, 
Reverend  Moses  Coit  Tyler,  who  was  then  in  the  Con- 
gregational church  of  Poughkeepsie.  It  was  an  emi- 
nently respectable  and  learned  council,  and  now  that  all 
the  members  of  it  have  passed  to  their  reward,  I  may 
express  my  wonder  that  they  should  have  been  willing 
to  proceed,  unanimously,  with  the  ordination  of  one 
whose  examination  must  have  exhibited  in  a  strong 
light  his  lack  of  preparation  for  so  great  a  work.  It  can 
be  explained  only  by  imputing  to  them  a  large  measure 
of  the  charity  that  covereth  a  multitude  of  deficiencies, 
or  of  the  faith  that  judges  a  man  less  by  what  he  is 
than  by  what  he  hopes  to  be. 

Perhaps  I  was  dealt  with  less  judicially,  because  the 
hearts  of  the  men  composing  this  council  must  have 
been  full  of  a  great  solicitude  respecting  the  state  of  the 
country.  In  every  assembly  of  serious-minded  Ameri- 
cans that  interest  was  uppermost;  the  ominous  possi- 
bilities were  gathering,  like  a  sullen  cloud  all  along  the 
southern  horizon. 

Another  event  which  followed  close  upon  my  ordina- 
tion was  my  marriage,  in  my  own  church,  on  Decem- 
ber 5,  to  Miss  Jennie  0,  Cohoon,  who  had  been  a  school- 
mate in  the  Owego  Academy,  and  was  at  that  time  a 
resident  of  Brooklyn. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   BURSTING  OF  THE   STORM 

Peace  hath  her  not  ignoble  wreath, 
Ere  yet  the  sharp,  decisive  word 
Light  the  black  lips  of  cannon,  and  the  sword 

Dreams  in  its  easeful  sheath ; 
But  some  day  the  hve  coal  behind  the  thought, 
Whether  from  Baal's  stone  obscene, 
Or  from  the  shrine  serene 
Of  God's  pure  altar  brought, 
Bursts  up  in  flame ;  the  war  of  tongue  and  pen 
Learns  wth  what  deadly  purpose  it  was  fraugiit. 
And,  helpless  in  the  fiery  passion  caught, 
Shakes  all  the  pillared  state  with  shock  of  men. 

James  Russell  LovxU. 

Just  two  weeks  after  my  ordination  services  came 
Thanksgiving  Day,  and  as  it  was  known  that  Mr 
Beecher  would  speak  on  the  national  issues,  I  went  to 
hear  him.  The  great  church  was  crowded  to  the  doors, 
and  the  air  was  quivering  with  suppressed  excitement. 
I  think  I  have  never  been  in  any  orderly  assembly  in 
which  there  were  more  signs  of  intense  feeling.  Before 
the  preacher  had  been  speaking  very  long,  some  trench- 
ant utterance  started  a  ripple  of  applause,  which  was 
quickly  suppressed  by  the  indignant  "Sh-h-h!"  of  the 
regular  worshipers,  who  had  no  mind  to  have  their  sanc- 
tuary profaned  by  such  noises.  Mr.  Beecher  paused  a 
moment,  and  with  a  quick  glance  about  him,  said 
quietly, " 'Tain't  Sunday !"  That  let  theaudience  loose. 
From  that  moment  onward  the  address  was  punctuated 


100  RECOLLECTIONS 

with  vociferous  applause.  It  was  a  scene  long  to  be 
remembered. 

The  sermon  is  printed  —  the  bones  of  it  —  in  Mr. 
Beecher's  "Freedom  and  War,"  under  the  title,  "Against 
a  Compromise  of  Principle."  It  is,  after  all,  but  a  mea- 
gre outline  of  the  passionate  plea  to  which  we  listened 
on  that  memorable  day.  Yet  that  was  the  substance 
of  it:  compromise  is  fatuous;  the  nation  must  stand 
fast  upon  the  principles  to  which  it  is  now  committed. 
"The  North,"  cried  the  orator,  "loves  liberty,  and  will 
have  it.  We  will  not  aggress  on  you.  Keep  your  institu- 
tions within  your  own  bounds ;  we  will  not  hinder  you. 
We  will  not  take  advantage  to  destroy,  or  one  whit 
to  abate,  your  fair  political  prerogatives.  You  have  al- 
ready gained  advantages  of  us.  These  we  will  allow  you 
to  hold.  You  shall  have  the  Constitution  intact,  and  its 
full  benefit.  The  full  might  and  power  of  public  senti- 
ment in  the  North  shall  guarantee  to  you  everything 
that  history  and  the  Constitution  give  you.  But  if  you 
ask  us  to  augment  the  area  of  slavery ;  to  cooperate  with 
you  in  cursing  new  territory ;  if  you  ask  us  to  make  the 
air  of  the  North  favorable  for  a  slave's  breath,  we  will 
not  do  it !  We  love  liberty  as  much  as  you  love  slavery, 
and  we  shall  stand  by  our  rights  with  all  the  vigor  with 
which  we  mean  to  stand  by  justice  toward  you." 

With  one  sentence  of  this  declaration  the  southern 
man  would  have  joined  issue.  The  intimation  that  no 
slave  can  breathe  northern  air  contradicts,  he  would 
have  said,  the  constitutional  provision  for  the  return  of 
fugitive  slaves.  "So  long,"  he  would  have  urged,  "as 
you  refuse  to  send  back  our  slaves,  you  are  insincere  in 


THE  BURSTING  OF  THE  STORM       101 

telling  us  that  we  shall  have  the  Constitution  intact 
and  its  full  benefit."  That,  indeed,  was  one  of  the  seri- 
ous complaints  of  the  southern  people,  and  it  must  be 
admitted  that  not  only  by  the  personal  liberty  laws 
enacted  by  several  of  the  northern  states  was  the  spirit 
of  the  Constitution  violated,  but  that  the  public  senti- 
ment of  the  North  practically  nullified  the  Federal 
statute  by  which  this  constitutional  provision  was 
enforced.  Here,  if  anywhere,  the  people  of  the  North 
were  failing  to  keep  their  part  of  the  compact.  And  in 
the  anxious  days  that  followed  the  election,  many 
among  us  were  inclined  to  confess  this  default,  and  to 
try  to  make  amends  for  it.  The  personal  liberty  laws 
were,  in  fact,  mainly  repealed,  and  there  was  a  disposi- 
tion on  the  part  of  some  conservative  statesmen  to  get 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  so  amended  that  it  might  be 
enforced. 

All  this,  however,  was  futile.  The  moral  sentiment 
of  the  North  had  reached  a  stage  at  which  the  return 
of  fugitives  to  slavery  was  a  thing  no  longer  possible. 
That  provision  of  the  old  compact  was  dead,  and  could 
never  be  resurrected.  If  secession  could  be  averted  only 
by  that  kind  of  guarantee,  secession  must  take  its 
course.  And  Mr.  Beecher,  in  this  tremendous  sermon, 
told  the  South  the  exact  truth  about  this. 

Suppose  you  teU  the  people,  then,  that  when  their  fugi- 
tives come  North  tbey  shall  be  surrendered.  Will  you  not 
please  to  catch  them  first?  You  know  you  cannot.  There 
are  five  hundred  men  that  run  through  the  northern 
states  where  there  is  one  that  stops  or  is  turned  back. 
They  know  it,  you  know  it,  we  all  know  it.   The  radical 


102  RECOLLECTIONS 

nature  of  the  feelings  of  the  North  is  such  that  they  will 
hurry  on  the  black  man  and  trip  his  hunter.  If  the  man- 
agers of  parties,  and  heads  of  conservative  committees, 
say  to  the  South,  "  Be  patient  with  us  a  Uttle  longer,  do 
not  punish  us  yet,  let  down  the  rod  and  the  frown ;  spare 
us  for  a  short  season,  and  we  will  see  that  your  slaves  are 
returned  to  you,"  do  you  suppose  there  will  be  a  fulfill- 
ment of  the  promise?  You  know  there  will  not.  I  know 
there  will  not.  I  would  die  myself,  cheerfully  and  easily, 
before  a  man  should  be  taken  out  of  my  hands  when  I  had 
the  power  to  give  him  liberty  and  the  hound  was  after 
him  for  his  blood.  I  would  stand  as  an  altar  of  expiation 
between  slavery  and  liberty,  knowing  that  through  my 
example  a  miUion  men  would  live.  A  heroic  deed,  in 
which  one  yields  himself  up  for  others,  is  his  Calvary.  It 
was  the  Ufting  up  of  Christ  on  that  hill-top  that  made  it 
the  loftiest  mountain  on  the  globe. 

As  the  weeks  went  by,  it  became  increasingly  evident 
that  the  great  majority  of  the  people  who  had  voted 
for  Lincoln  stood  on  this  platform,  and  could  never 
be  moved  from  it.  They  believed  that  freedom  was 
national  and  slavery  sectional;  they  would  suffer  no 
further  extension  of  slave  territory.  Nor  would  they 
bind  themselves  to  send  back  fugitives. 

And  now  suppose  that  South  Carolina  should  make 
good  her  threat  of  secession,  and  that  the  other  cot- 
ton states  should  follow  her:  what  then?  How  should 
the  nation  meet  that  emergency?  Mr.  Beecher  did  not 
answer  that  question  explicitly.  But  a  day  or  two 
before,  in  Boston,  in  reply  to  the  question,  "Do  you 
think  the  South  will  secede?"  he  had  said:  "I  don't 
believe  they  will,  and  I  don't  care  if  they  do."  Such  was 


THE  BURSTING  OF  THE  STORxM        103 

the  first  response  to  the  secession  movement  of  many 
radical  Republicans.  The  New  York  "Tribune,"  which 
was  the  Repubhcan  Bible,  said,  three  days  after  the 
election:  "If  the  cotton  states  shall  decide  that  they 
can  do  better  out  of  the  Union  than  in  it,  we  insist 
on  letting  them  go  in  peace.  The  right  to  secede  may 
be  a  revolutionary  one,  but  it  exists,  nevertheless.  .  .  . 
^\^lenever  a  considerable  section  of  our  Union  shall 
deliberately  resolve  to  go  out,  we  shall  resist  all  coercive 
measures  designed  to  keep  it  in.  We  hope  never  to  live 
in  a  republic  whereof  one  section  is  pinned  to  the 
residue  by  bayonets." 

Up  to  the  middle  of  December  this  policy  was  tenta- 
tively advocated  by  a  good  many  anti-slavery  men. 
The  reason  of  it  was  in  the  horror  of  war,  and  in  the 
grave  doubt  whether  such  a  question  could  be  settled 
by  force.  Gradually  these  doubts  were  overborne,  and 
the  Websterian  sentiment  of  tlie  indissolubility  of  the 
Union  began  to  prevail.  The  enormous  difficulty  of 
maintaining  two  nationalities  uix)n  this  territory,  with 
no  natural  frontier ;  the  certainty  of  constant  collisions 
and  entanglements  over  economic  and  political  ques- 
tions; the  intolerable  consequence  of  having  our  nat- 
ural access  to  the  Gulf  closed  against  us,  —  all  these 
considerations  soon  began  to  get  such  possession  of  the 
northern  mind  that  peaceable  secession  was  practically 
dismissed,  as  a  chimerical  proposition. 

Just  how  much  of  this  conclusion  was  rational  and 
how  much  of  it  was  due  to  instinctive  impulses  and  ele- 
mental passions,  we  may  never  know.  It  is  useless  now 
to  speculate  on  what  might  have  been,  but  one  cannot 


104  RECOLLECTIONS 

help  wondering  what  would  have  happened  if  General 
Scott's  first  impulse  had  been  followed,  and  the  "  erring 
sisters"  had  been  bidden  to  "go  in  peace."  How  many 
of  them  would  have  gone?  The  Gulf  states,  undoubt- 
edly ;  but  eastern  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  and  western 
Virginia  could  hardly  have  been  forced  out  of  the  Union. 
And  the  states  thus  seceding  could  have  set  up  no  claim 
to  any  of  the  territory  of  the  nation,  north  or  south; 
certainly,  such  a  claim  would  never  have  been  allowed. 
The  new  slave  repubhc  would  thus  have  been  inclosed 
within  free  territory,  with  little  chance  for  expansion. 
Cuba  would,  no  doubt,  have  been  benevolently  ab- 
sorbed very  soon ;  beyond  that,  the  boundaries  were  not 
likely  to  be  extended.  That  restriction  would  have 
meant  economic  feebleness  and  decay,  for,  as  Caimes 
had  so  cogently  argued,  the  existence  of  such  a  system 
of  unskilled  labor  depends  on  the  constant  enlargement 
of  territory.  Since  the  land  which  it  occupies  must 
needs  be  impoverished,  it  can  live  only  by  continual 
migration  to  fresh  fields.  This  was  the  reason  why  the 
slave  power  was  always  so  hungry  for  more  slave  terri- 
tory: it  was  an  economic  necessity. 

And  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  new  republic, 
making  slavery  its  corner-stone,  and  having  no  other 
obvious  reason  for  its  existence  than  the  determination 
to  perpetuate  its  peculiar  institution,  would  have  fallen 
under  the  ban  of  the  enlightened  opinion  of  the  world. 
With  the  entire  ethical  evolution  of  modem  society  it 
would  have  found  itself  at  war.  It  is  not  credible  that 
a  slave  republic  could  long  have  maintained  itself  upon 
that  territory.  The  stars  in  their  courses  would  have 


THE  BURSTING  OF  THE  STORM        105 

fought  against  it.  It  would  have  been  forced,  before 
many  decades,  to  face  the  problem  of  emancipation.  And 
it  is  not  improbable  that  that  problem  might  have  been 
worked  out  in  a  peaceful  evolution,  with  results  less 
disastrous  than  those  which  have  attended  the  destruc- 
tion of  slavery  as  a  measure  of  war.  The  relations 
between  the  races  would  have  been  less  strained.  It  is 
not  impossible  that  the  freedmen  and  their  masters 
might  have  dwelt  together  as  amicably  as  they  are 
dwelling  in  Jamaica  to-day.  Beyond  a  question,  a  large 
part  of  the  race  hatred  which  now  exists  in  the  South  is 
due  to  the  irritations  and  antagonisms  engendered  by 
the  war. 

\Mien  emancipation  had  been  effected,  there  would 
be  no  reason  whatever  why  the  severed  sections  should 
remain  apart,  and  they  would  be  almost  sure  to  come 
together.  It  is  by  no  means  improbable  that  we  might, 
by  this  time,  —  at  the  end  of  a  half-century  after  the 
rupture  of  the  national  bond,  —  have  been  negotiat- 
ing for  a  restoration  of  the  Union,  with  good  hope  of 
dwelling  together  again  in  peace  and  amity,  with  the 
race  question  settled,  and  the  prospect  bright  of  a  new 
Saturnian  reign. 

Wliat  the  northern  nation  might  have  become,  by  this 
time,  if  it  could  have  devoted  all  the  enormous  sum 
which  has  been  expended  for  the  war,  and  on  the  pen- 
sion list,  in  the  development  of  its  resources,  in  making 
its  domain  more  fruitful  and  more  beautiful,  and  in 
filling  the  homes  of  its  people  w4th  the  abundance  of 
peace,  I  will  not  try  to  tell.  Nor  could  any  man  compute 
the  moral  gain  which  might  have  accrued  to  the  nation 


106  RECOLLECTIONS 

if  the  demoralization  and  corruption  incident  to  such 
a  war  could  have  been  avoided. 

I  know  very  well  that  quite  another  series  of  possibili- 
ties could  be  excogitated,  as  the  result  of  peaceable 
secession,  —  possibilities  as  much  more  dire  than  exist- 
ing conditions,  as  those  which  I  have  been  imagining 
are  more  benign.  And  nobody  will  ever  know  which  of 
these  possibilities  is  the  more  probable.  But,  as  I  recall 
those  anxious  days  of  November  and  December,  1860, 
I  cannot  help  wishing  that  the  ethical  passion  of  the 
North  for  liberty  had  been  matched  with  a  faith,  equally 
compelling,  in  the  cogency  of  good  will.  One  or  two 
sermons,  yellow  with  age,  bearing  those  dates,  testify 
of  a  strong  desire  to  find  a  better  way  out  of  the  trouble 
than  the  horrible  way  of  war,  and  I  am  not  ashamed 
of  the  youthful  faith  that  a  better  way  was  possible. 

The  dreadful  winter  dragged  slowly  by.  Congress  was 
trying  to  patch  up  a  compromise,  but  the  effort  was 
nugator}^  The  southern  states  were  completing  their 
preparations  for  the  formation  of  a  southern  Confeder- 
acy, and  the  shadow  of  a  great  calamity  lay  heavily  upon 
the  land.  Commercial  activities  were  prostrated;  it 
began  to  be  evident  that  the  debts  due  from  the  South 
to  northern  merchants  would  never  be  paid ;  the  money 
market  was  tight  and  panicky,  and  the  social  atmosphere 
was  as  dense  and  depressing  as  that  which  we  sometimes 
breathe  when  an  August  thunderstorm  is  brewing. 

In  February  Mr.  Lincoln  started  from  Springfield  for 
Washington.  The  telegraph  brought  us  daily  tidings  of 
his  progress,  and  the  reports  were  not,  on  the  whole, 
reassuring.  There  was  a  tender  genuineness  about  the 


THE  BURSTING  OF  THE  STORM        107 

speech  to  his  old  neighbors  that  touched  all  our  hearts, 
but  the  other  speeches  seemed  lacking  not  only  in 
felicity,  but  in  grasp  and  seriousness.  There  was  Uttle 
of  the  cogency  and  directness  of  the  debates  with 
Douglas;  could  we  have  been  mistaken  in  our  man? 
The  possibility  was  appalling.  I  went  over  to  New  York 
to  see  him  pass  down  Broadway.  He  stood  in  his 
barouche,  bowing  rather  stiffly  right  and  left  to  the 
throng  that  packed  the  sidewalks.  There  was  more 
curiosity  than  enthusiasm.  His  face  was  wan  and 
anxious ;  he  must  have  known  that  his  greeting  greatly 
lacked  cordiality.  I  stood  upon  the  curbstone,  and  his 
carriage  paused  for  a  minute  or  two  opposite  the  place 
where  I  was  standing,  so  that  I  had  a  good  look  into  his 
face.  It  was  the  only  sight  of  it  I  ever  had,  except  one 
brief  glimpse  of  him  on  horseback,  at  City  Point,  in  war- 
time. The  face  was  strong  and  benign,  but  unspeakably 
sad ;  the  burden  of  a  nation  was  on  his  heart.  Was  he 
man  enough  for  the  hour?  Some  who  had  come  into 
close  contact  with  him  felt  confident.  Thurlow  Weed, 
the  veteran  editor,  who  was  no  sentimentalist,  had  had 
good  opportunity  to  measure  his  mind,  and  his  verdict 
was  unhesitating ;  he  told  us  that  he  was  not  only  honest 
and  true,  but  "capable  —  capable  in  the  largest  sense  of 
the  term.  He  has  read  much  and  thought  much  of  gov- 
ernment, inwardly  digesting  its  theory  and  practice." 
It  was  good  to  get  such  assurance  just  then ;  in  fact,  we 
needed  it.  For,  doubtless,  in  the  hearts  of  millions  who 
had  watched  this  journey  there  was  a  painful  misgiving 
that  another  brilliant  editor's  estimate  of  him,  as  "a 
simple  Susan,"  might  be  nearer  the  mark. 


108  RECOLLECTIONS 

For  the  dispersion  of  these  fears  we  had  not  long  to 
wait.  The  first  inaugural  address  put  them  all  out  of  our 
minds.  The  man  who  could  meet  a  great  emergency 
with  such  wisdom  and  courage  and  gentleness  was  a  man 
whom  we  need  not  fear  to  follow.  There  was  no  need  of 
making  apologies  for  Abraham  Lincoln,  from  the  hour 
when  the  great  responsibilities  of  office  were  placed  upon 
his  shoulders. 

Soon  came  the  crucial  test  of  the  national  authority. 
The  Confederate  government,  wuth  seven  states,  had 
been  organized  at  Montgomery;  South  Carolina  was 
gathering  an  army  in  the  environs  of  Charleston,  and 
had  occupied  two  of  the  forts  in  that  harbor ;  but  Fort 
SunUer  stood  there  grim  and  defiant,  with  the  United 
States  flag  flying  over  it,  and  a  brave  Federal  officer 
commanding  it.  Should  it  be  evacuated  or  defended? 
Mr,  Lincoln  said  that  it  should  not  be  evacuated,  and 
sent  supplies  for  the  garrison.  The  Confederate  authori- 
ties, hearing  this,  demanded  its  surrender.  The  demand 
was  refused,  the  Confederate  batteries  opened  on  the 
national  citadel,  and  after  an  unequal  contest  the  gar- 
rison was  compelled  to  abandon  the  fort.  The  war  was 
begun,  and  there  was  no  question  as  to  w^ho  began  it. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  kept  the  promise  of  his  inaugural  ad- 
dress. "The  power  confided  to  me  will  be  used  to  hold, 
occupy,  and  possess  the  property  and  places  belonging 
to  the  government,  and  to  collect  the  duties  and 
imposts,  but  beyond  what  may  be  necessary  for  these 
objects  there  will  be  no  invasion,  no  using  of  force 
against  or  among  the  people  anywhere."  Not  a  thing 
had  been  done  "to  coerce  a  sovereign  state" ;  no  troops 


THE  BURSTING  OF  THE  STORM       109 

had  been  sent  even  to  strengthen  the  garrison  at  Fort 
Sumter;  no  act  more  warlike  had  been  committed  by 
the  national  government  than  the  attempt  to  supply 
Major  Anderson's  soldiers  with  food.  It  was  for  this  that 
the  batteries  of  the  seceders  had  opened  on  Fort  Sum- 
ter; that  the  flag  had  been  insulted  and  the  authority 
of  the  nation  defied.  The  patient  Lincoln  had  won  the 
game.  This  wanton  attack  upon  Sumter  gave  him,  in 
one  hour,  a  united  nation.  "Had  any  one,"  said  Lowell, 
"ventured  to  prophecy  on  the  Fourth  of  March  that  the 
immediate  prospect  of  Civil  War  would  be  hailed  by  the 
people  of  the  free  states  with  a  unanimous  shout  of 
enthusiasm,  he  would  have  been  thought  a  madman. 
Yet  the  prophecy  would  have  been  verified  by  what 
we  now  see  and  hear  in  every  city,  town,  and  hamlet 
from  Maine  to  Kansas."  *  And  George  Ticknor,  in  a 
letter  of  April  21,  bore  testimony:  "The  heather  is 
on  fire.  I  never  before  knew  what  a  popular  sentiment 
can  be.  .  .  .  Indeed,  here  at  the  North  there  never  was 
anything  like  it ;  for  if  the  feeling  was  as  deep  and  stem 
in  1775,  it  was  by  no  means  so  intelligent  or  unanimous, 
and  then  the  masses  to  be  moved  were  as  a  handful 
compared  to  our  dense  population  now."  The  prompt 
call  of  the  President  for  seventy-five  thousand  militia- 
men to  defend  the  capital  was  greeted  with  exulta- 
tion. The  populations  that  had  been  hesitant,  sullen, 
apathetic,  sprang  to  their  feet  as  one  man. 

Professor  Shaler  had  a  theory  that  the  processes  of 
development  are  sometimes  mightily  hastened;  that 
there  are  critical  instants  which  complete  the  work  of 

*  Atlantic  Monthly,  June,  1861. 


no  RECOLLECTIONS 

long  periods,  as  when  water  on  the  verge  of  freezing  is 
suddenly  converted  into  ice  by  a  slight  blow  on  the  ves- 
sel containing  it.  Such  a  crystallization  was  the  work 
of  the  first  gun  fired  at  Fort  Sumter. 

Probably  there  was  no  place  in  the  land  where  this 
change  was  more  nearly  miraculous  than  in  the  city  of 
New  York.  Through  the  early  months  of  1861  New  York 
had  been  by  no  means  sure  that  it  was  not  a  city  without 
a  country.  The  New  York  "Herald,"  which  was  the 
paper  of  largest  circulation,  was  in  undisguised  sym- 
pathy with  the  secessionists ;  the  mayor  of  the  city,  in 
a  message  to  the  Council,  had  urged  that  if  the  South 
seceded,  New  York  city  should  also  declare  itself  a  free 
city  and  dissolve  its  relations  with  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment ;  and  there  seems  to  be  good  evidence  that  a  plot 
was  incubating,  in  which  a  large  number  of  "the  most 
influential  and  wealthy  citizens"  were  involved,  "to 
throw  off  the  authority  of  the  Federal  and  State  govern- 
ments, to  seize  the  navy  yard  at  Brooklyn,  the  vessels  of 
war  and  the  forts  in  the  harbor,  and  to  declare  New  York 
a  free  city."  To  one  who  had  been  gasping  in  this 
stifling  atmosphere  for  some  months,  the  change  which 
took  place  on  the  day  when  the  bombardment  of  Fort 
Sumter  began  was  exhilarating.  It  was  like  those  sud- 
den northwest  breezes  which  sometimes  come  down 
upon  the  city  in  the  torrid  days  of  August  and  drive  the 
humidity  out  to  sea. 

I  went  over  to  the  city  nearly  every  day ;  it  was  like  a 
bath  of  oxygen  to  mingle  with  the  crowds  on  the  ferries 
and  in  the  streets.  One  morning,  as  I  went  up  Fulton 
Street  from  the  ferry,  a  crowd  appeared,  coming  up 


THE   BURSTING  OF  THE  STORM       111 

Nassau  Street  from  the  south.  Some  one  told  me  that 
they  were  visiting  the  offices  of  sundry  newspapers, 
whose  attitude  upon  national  questions  had  been  equi- 
vocal. They  had  just  come  from  the  office  of  the 
"Journal  of  Commerce,"  and  in  response  to  their  sug- 
gestion the  flag  had  been  displayed  on  the  building  of 
that  newspaper.  They  were  by  no  means  a  rough  crowd ; 
they  were  making  no  noise,  but  there  was  determination 
in  their  looks,  and  many  of  them  had  brickbats  or  pav- 
ing-stones in  their  hands.  They  had  paused  in  front  of 
the  office  of  the  New  York  "Herald,"  on  the  corner  of 
Fulton  and  Nassau  streets,  and  some  one  had  gone  up 
the  stairway  on  the  Fulton  Street  side.  Presently  a  boy 
in  his  shirt-sleeves  came  down  the  stairs  and  ran  toward 
Broadway,  returning,  in  a  few  moments,  with  a  long 
parcel,  wrapped  in  brown  paper.  Immediately  a  window 
was  opened,  and  the  American  flag  was  thrust  out.  The 
crowd  cheered  it,  dropped  their  brickbats,  and  dis- 
persed, with  some  merriment.  I  had  the  "Herald"  in 
my  hand  at  the  time ;  its  leading  editorial  was  an  exas- 
perating plea  for  affiliation  with  the  South.  The  next 
morning  its  loyalty  was  unequivocal.  "War,"  it  de- 
clared, "will  make  the  northern  people  a  unit."  I  felt 
that  I  had  been  the  witness  of  a  conversion  which  for 
suddenness  quite  eclipsed  that  of  Saul  of  Tarsus. 

The  next  day  the  Sixth  Massachusetts  Infantry 
marched  down  Broadway,  through  crowds  that  rent  the 
air  with  shouting.  \Miat  a  different  temperature  from 
that  through  which  Lincoln  had  passed  not  many  days 
before!  But  in  the  midst  of  all  this  exaltation  there 
came  terrible  moments  of  depression.  I  shall  never  for- 


112  RECOLLECTIONS 

get  the  sickening  sense  of  the  reality  of  it  all  which  came 
over  me  as  those  Massachusetts  boys  tramped  by.  They 
were  not  all  hilarious :  on  the  faces  of  the  more  thought- 
ful there  was  a  strained  look ;  they  knew  that  they  were 
not  out  for  a  holiday.  I  had  seen  soldiers  on  parade 
many  times,  but  this  was  something  else ;  ball  cartridges 
were  in  these  belts,  and  these  men  were  marching  to 
dreadful  war ;  before  the  next  noon,  some  of  them  would 
be  lying  dead  in  the  streets  of  Baltimore. 

It  was  the  next  day  that  our  own  crack  regiment, 
the  Seventh,  started  for  Washington.  The  massacre  in 
Baltimore  had  hastened  their  departure.  The  metrop- 
olis again  went  wild.  Theodore  Winthrop,  whose  life 
was  laid  down  but  a  month  or  two  later,  was  in  those 
ranks.  "It  was  worth  a  life,  that  march,"  he  wrote. 
"Only  one  who  passed,  as  we  did,  through  that  tempest 
of  cheers  two  miles  long,  can  know  the  terrible  enthu- 
siasm of  the  occasion." 

Not  many  days  after,  a  great  war  meeting  was  held 
in  Union  Square.  The  whole  space  was  packed  with  tens 
of  thousands  of  shouting  patriots ;  there  were  half-a- 
dozen  speaking  platforms,  and  the  orators  of  Gotham 
were  out  in  force.  The  "Tribune"  was  probably  justi- 
fied in  saying  that  it  was  the  greatest  crowd  ever 
gathered  upon  this  continent.  Leading  Democrats  were 
among  the  speakers,  and  Archbishop  Hughes  sent  an 
enthusiastic  letter.  Mayor  Fernando  Wood,  who  a  few 
days  before  had  been  counseling  alliance  with  the  Con- 
federates, made  a  vehement  speech,  in  which  he  an- 
swered the  boast  of  the  Confederate  Secretary  of  War, 
tiiat  the  rebel  flag  would  soon  be  fljdng  over  the  national 


THE  BURSTING  OF  THE  STORM       113 

capital  and  Faneuil  Hall,  by  declaring  that  to  get 
Boston  they  would  have  to  go  over  the  body  of  every 
citizen  of  New  York,  and  that  the  capture  of  the  capital 
would  mean  the  enlistment  in  the  army  of  "every  man, 
woman,  and  child  in  the  North."  New  converts  are 
always  zealous. 

The  instances  show  that  the  blood  of  the  North  was 
up.  The  leaders  at  Charleston  and  Montgomery  must 
have  been  astounded.  They  had  reliable  advices  from 
well-informed  secret  service  agents  in  New  York  that 
the  metropolis  was  all  ready  to  range  itself  on  their 
side.    Something  must  have  happened. 

Yet,  in  the  midst  of  the  tumult  and  the  shouting,  the 
hearts  of  thoughtful  men  were  very  sad.  Men  like 
Seward,  whose  optimism  was  almost  flippant,  could  talk 
of  ending  the  war  in  ninety  days,  but  that  was  a  fond 
imagination.  That  bloody  years  were  before  us  seemed 
a  dreadful  certainty.  In  the  "Century  War  Book,"  *  is 
a  testimony  by  General  J.  D.  Cox,  which  reveals  the 
undertone  of  feeling :  — 

The  situation  hung  upon  us  like  a  ninjhtmarc.  Garfield 
and  I  were  lodging  together  at  the  time  [in  Columbus],  and 
when  we  reached  our  sitting-room,  after  an  evening  ses- 
sion of  the  Senate  [of  the  Ohio  Legislature],  we  often  found 
ourselves  involuntarily  groaning :  "  Civil  war  in  our  land ! " 
The  shame,  the  folly,  the  outrage  seemed  too  great  to 
believe,  and  we  half  hoped  to  wake  from  it  as  from  a 
dream.  Among  the  painful  remembrances  of  those  days 
is  the  ever-present  weight  at  the  heart,  which  never  left 
me  until  I  found  relief  in  the  active  duties  of  camp  life  at 
the  close  of  the  month.  I  went  about  my  duties  (and  I  am 
»  Vol.  i,  p.  87. 


114  RECOLLECTIONS 

sure  that  most  of  those  with  whom  I  associated  did  the 
same)  with  the  half-choking  sense  of  a  grief  I  dared  not 
think  of;  hke  one  who  is  dragging  himself  to  the  labors 
of  life  from  some  terrible  and  recent  bereavement. 

In  fact,  the  labors  of  life,  for  people  in  general,  were 
greatly  interrupted.  Business  w^as  at  a  standstill;  the 
army  of  buyers  from  the  South  were  of  course  not  there, 
and  remittances  from  that  region  had  ceased;  all  over 
the  country  industry  was  paralyzed ;  men  were  standing 
idle  in  the  market-place.  And  it  must  be  confessed  that 
this  unwonted  excitement  did  not  prove  conducive  to 
the  growth  of  churches.  The  congregations  dwindled, 
the  Sunday-schools  were  decimated,  the  whole  work 
of  the  church  seemed  to  have  come  to  a  sudden  pause. 
Every  Smiday,  regiments  from  New  England  or  north- 
em  New  York  were  marching  down  Broadway  on  their 
way  to  Washington,  and  the  crowds  flocked  over  the 
ferries  to  see  the  spectacle.  Our  own  church,  which,  in 
the  autumn,  seemed  to  be  gathering  up  its  forces,  shared 
in  these  distractions,  and  the  young  pastor  found  him- 
self struggling  with  conditions  that  were  hopeless.  Like 
many  other  enterprises  in  those  days,  the  church  was 
financially  disabled,  and  the  wolf  was  looking  in  at  the 
door  of  the  parsonage. 

The  strain  of  the  work  and  the  anxiety,  intensified  by 
the  conditions  of  the  national  life,  were  quite  too  much 
for  a  constitution  which  had  hitherto  recognized  no 
limitations  upon  its  endurance,  and  a  nervous  collapse 
left  me  in  a  crippled  condition.  It  was  clear  that  this 
w^ork  must  be  abandoned ;  it  was  not  clear,  for  a  few 
weeks,  that  any  other  work  could  soon  be  undertaken. 


THE  BURSTING  OF  THE  STORM       115 

But  it  happened  that  there  was  a  little  church  in 
Morrisania,  two  miles  north  of  the  Harlem  River,  which 
was  just  then  vacant,  and  it  was  a  good  Providence 
that  drew  me  into  that  quiet  suburb.  The  people  were 
willing  to  let  me  do  what  I  could,  which  was  little,  at 
the  beginning ;  and  the  light  labor  was  probably  better 
for  me  than  any  enforced  leisure  would  have  been.  So 
it  came  about  that  without  a  week's  interruption  my 
work  went  forward  in  this  new  field. 

The  territory  now  included  in  the  borough  of  the 
Bronx  which  stretches  north  and  east  from  the  Harlem 
River  was  then  parceled  out  among  a  number  of  sprawl- 
ing villages,  Mott  Haven,  Melrose,  Morrisania,  Tremont, 
Fordham,  and  West  Farms,  —  access  to  which  from  the 
city  was  given  by  the  Harlem  Railroad,  and  by  a  line 
of  little  steamboats  plying  between  Peek  Slip  and  the 
Harlem  River.  From  Harlem  Bridge  a  line  of  rickety 
stages  ran  north  to  the  various  villages  through  bottom- 
less mud  in  the  wet  seasons,  and  clouds  of  dust  in  the 
dry.  The  Third  Avenue  horse-cars  also  crawled  from 
the  City  Hall  to  the  bridge  in  an  hour  and  twenty 
minutes.  Yet  I  am  persuaded  that  life  was  more  restful 
in  those  days  for  the  inhabitants  of  that  region  than  it 
is  in  these.  The  sail  of  forty-five  minutes  up  the  East 
River  was  very  refreshing;  the  torment  of  the  stages 
was  brief;  and  we  found  ourselves  at  the  end  of  our 
journey  in  green  country  lanes,  with  no  noise  of  wheels 
or  whistles,  with  time  to  work  in  our  gardens,  and  birds 
and  bees  and  butterflies  filling  the  air  with  life  and 
color  and  music. 

Our  home  in  Brooklj-n  had  been  upon  a  street  trav- 


116  RECOLLECTIONS 

ersed  by  the  Long  Island  market  wagons,  the  din  of 
whose  wheels  on  the  cobblestone  pavements  began  soon 
after  midnight  and  never  ceased ;  and  the  silence  of  the 
first  nights  in  Morrisania  was  so  oppressive  that  we 
could  not  sleep.  The  nerves  had  to  adjust  themselves  to 
the  new  conditions.  It  did  not  take  long,  however,  and 
the  stillness  and  sweetness  of  the  rural  life  were  very- 
medicinal. 

Through  the  years  of  the  Civil  War  this  was  to  be  my 
home.  In  an  hour  I  could  be  in  the  heart  of  the  metrop- 
olis, but  we  were  far  enough  from  the  madding  crowd 
to  escape  the  nervous  wear  and  tear,  and  find  space 
for  reading  and  reflection.  The  little  church  offered 
me  kindly  and  grateful  associations.  It  was  made  up  of 
young  professional  and  business  men,  teachers,  libra- 
rians, city  officials,  and  the  like ;  the  average  of  intelli- 
gence was  much  higher  than  that  of  my  Brooklyn  con- 
gregation, and  the  people  were  disposed  to  be  generous 
and  considerate  in  their  judgment  of  a  young  man's 
limitations. 

Meantime  the  volunteers  were  pouring  southward 
every  day,  and  the  troops  of  the  insurgents  were  begin- 
ning to  concentrate  in  the  neighborhood  of  Washington. 
Early  in  July  the  "Tribune"  began  printing,  under  its 
editorial  heading,  in  flaming  capitals,  this  imperious 
demand:  Forward  to  Richmond!  Forward  to  Richmond! 
The  Rebel  Congress  must  not  he  allowed  to  meet  there 
on  the  twentieth  of  July.  By  that  date  the  place  must  he 
held  hy  the  national  army!  This  language  was  repeated 
with  the  same  emphasis,  day  after  day.  The  newspaper 
supposed  that  it  was  giving  voice  to  the  national  impa- 


THE  BURSTING  OF  THE  STORM       117 

tience ;  perhaps  it  was ;  but  the  time  had  been  brief  for 
the  assembling  and  equipment  of  an  army  prepared  to 
take  the  offensive  in  a  country  difficult  of  invasion.  It 
was  not  long  before  the  tidings  came  that  McDowell  was 
moving  southward,  in  force,  and  our  hearts  stood  still. 
On  Sunday  morning,  July  21,  as  we  gathered  at  the 
church,  news  came  that  the  fight  was  beginning.  That 
night  and  the  next  morning  the  word  was  all  of  victory ; 
but  before  Monday  noon  we  knew  that  the  short-lived 
triumph  had  turned  to  disaster,  and  that  our  shattered 
and  demoralized  army  had  come  huddling  back  into  the 
fortifications  about  Washington.  Will  any  one  try  to 
estimate  the  load  that  lay  that  night  upon  the  heart  of  a 
loyal  nation  ?  There  was  no  discouragement,  and  not  a 
thought  of  turning  back ;  the  purpose  of  the  people  was 
stronger  than  ever ;  but  the  magnitude  and  the  appalling 
seriousness  of  the  work  before  us  was  brought  home  to 
us  with  terrible  power.  And  it  must  be  admitted  that 
there  was  much  rash  and  wild  talk ;  the  people  were  not 
yet  sufficiently  sure  of  themselves  to  bear  such  a  reverse 
quite  steadily.  Scapegoats  were  sought  for;  the  gov- 
ernment at  Washington  was  bitterly  denounced  for 
inefficiency;  the  "Tribune"  went  so  far  as  to  demand 
tlie  immediate  resignation  of  the  entire  Cabinet.  It  was 
well  for  us  that  the  patient  Lincoln  was  at  the  helm. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

DARK   DAYS 

So  long  ago  it  seems,  so  long  ago, 

Behold,  our  sons,  grown  men  since  those  great  days,  — 

Born  since  the  last  clear  bugle  ceased  to  blow 

Its  summons  down  the  valley;  since  the  bays 

Shook  with  the  roar  of  fort  and  answering  fleet,  — 

Our  very  children  look  into  our  eyes 

And  find  strange  records,  with  a  mute  surprise; 

As  they  some  curious  traveler  might  greet 

Who  kept  far  countries  in  his  musing  mind, 

Beyond  the  weltering  seas,  the  mountain-walls  behind. 

And  yet  it  was  this  land  and  not  another. 
Where  blazed  war's  flame  and  rolled  the  battle  cloud. 
In  all  this  land  there  was  no  home  where  brother, 
Father,  or  son  hurried  not  forth ;  where  bowed 
No  broken-hearted  woman  when  pale  Death 
Laid  his  cold  finger  on  the  loved  one's  breath. 

Richard  Watson  Gilder. 

The  outstanding  memories  of  all  those  days  in  Mor- 
risania  are,  of  course,  the  events  of  the  war ;  but  in  the 
midst  of  arms  the  voices  of  the  spirit  were  not  wholly 
silent ;  our  life  went  quietly  forward,  and  other  interests 
were  not  neglected.  The  little  church  gave  me  no  finan- 
cial worries,  and  there  was  time  for  study.  An  intro- 
duction to  the  librarian  of  the  Astor  Library  gained  me 
the  freedom  of  the  theological  alcoves,  and  I  spent 
much  of  my  time  in  them.  Professor  Roswell  D.  Hitch- 
cock and  Professor  Henry  B.  Smith,  of  the  Union  Theo- 
logical Seminary,  also  kindly  permitted  me  to  attend 
their  lectures,  and  I  gave  what  time  I  could  to  these 
stimulating  teachers.  Of  greater  consequence,  however, 


DARK  DAYS  119 

than  these  influences,  was  the  entrance  into  my  life  of 
Frederick  W.  Robertson  and  Horace  Bushnell,  —  each 
of  them  through  volumes  of  sermons  which  opened  to 
me  a  new  world.  Here  were  men  to  whom  spiritual 
things  were  not  traditions  but  living  verities;  men  who 
knew  how  to  bring  religion  into  vital  touch  with  real- 
ity. WTiat  I  found  upon  these  throbbing  pages  was 
what  Dr.  Munger  afterward  described  as  "The  Appeal 
to  Life."  I  can  never  tell  how  much  I  owe  to  these  two 
men  —  to  Robertson,  first,  for  opening  my  eyes ;  to 
Bushnell,  chiefly,  for  teaching  me  how  to  use  them. 

Some  one,  to  whom  I  was  confessing  my  indebtedness 
to  Bushnell,  told  me  of  an  earlier  book  of  his,  —  "God 
in  Christ,"  —  which  I  procured,  and  lived  with  for  some 
months.  The  introductory  essay,  on  Language,  was,  for 
me,  a  "Novum  Organon,"  giving  me  a  new  sense  of  the 
nature  of_the  instrument  which  I  was  trying  to  use,  and 
making  entirely  clear  the  futility  of  the  ordinary  dog- 
matic method.  And  in  the  three  great  discourses  which 
followed,  delivered  at  New  Haven,  at  Andover,  and  at 
Cambridge,  I  found  an  emancipation  proclamation 
which  delivered  me  at  once  and  forever  from  the  bond- 
age of  an  immoral  theology.  That  there  was  a  gospel 
to  preach  I  had  no  longer  any  doubt,  for  I  had  been 
made  to  see  that  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  would  do 
right.  That  was  the  foundation  of  Bushnell 's  faith ;  his 
heresy  was  the  unfaltering  beUef  that  God  is  just.  "\Miat 
he  denied  was  simply  those  assertions  and  impHcations 
of  the  old  theology  which  attribute  to  God  injustice. 
He  had  found  God,  in  his  college  days,  by  his  insistence 
upon  an  ethical  theology.  And  his  entire  quarrel  with 


120  RECOLLECTIONS 

the  traditional  dogmas  grew  out  of  his  determination  to 
admit  no  explanations  of  the  divine  conduct  which  were 
in  conflict  with  the  fundamental  principles  of  morals. 
That  men  should  be  judged  and  doomed  before  they 
were  born;  that  men  should  be  held  blameworthy  and 
punishable  for  what  was  done  by  their  ancestors ;  that 
justice  could  be  secured  by  the  punishment  of  one  for 
the  sin  of  another,  were  propositions  to  him  unthink- 
able. He  dared  to  say  so,  and  by  his  courage  he  opened 
the  way  to  a  larger  liberty  for  a  great  multitude.  Yet, 
at  that  day,  he  was  still  under  the  ban  of  his  own  de- 
nomination; the  heresy-hunters  had  not  been  able  to 
dislodge  him  from  his  church,  but  they  had  filled  the 
churches  with  suspicions  of  him,  and  "Bushnellism" 
was  a  name  with  which  no  ambitious  minister  could 
afford  to  be  branded.  It  was  well  understood  that  no- 
body suspected  of  that  taint  could  hope  for  ordination 
over  a  Congregational  church.  Nevertheless,  what  he 
had  taught  seemed  to  me  true,  and  it  was  hardly  pos- 
sible that  I  should  hold  my  tongue  about  it.  Gradually 
my  own  teaching  reflected  the  new  conceptions  into 
which  I  had  been  led,  but  as  they  were  not  set  forth 
controversially,  nobody  seemed  to  be  greatly  troubled 
by  them. 

One  Sunday  morning,  after  a  sermon  in  which  I  had 
been  more  frank  than  ever  before  in  the  expression 
of  the  heretical  theory,  I  found  myself  following  up 
the  street  one  of  my  most  conservative  parishioners, 
who  had  intimated  to  me,  once  or  twice,  his  dissent 
from  what  he  had  been  hearing.  Naturally  I  hesitated 
to  expose  myself  to  his  criticism,  but  he  was  walking 


DARK  DAYS  121 

slowly  and  I  found  it  difficult  to  avoid  overtaking  him. . 
His  greeting  was:  "That  was  a  good  sermon !  I  wish  we 
might  have  more  sermons  like  that."  The  good  man 
would  have  been  confounded  if  he  had  known  that  he 
had  been  listening  to  heresy.  I  did  not  enlighten  him. 
Since  the  only  bit  of  genuine  heresy  to  which  he  had 
been  exposed  seemed  so  palatable  to  him,  it  would  have 
been  unkind  to  disturb  his  enjoyment  of  it. 

The  small  chapel  in  which  we  were  worshiping  soon 
became  too  strait  for  us,  and  with  much  labor  and  sacri- 
fice we  succeeded  in  replacing  it  with  a  larger  and  more 
attractive  church.  That  the  church  ought  to  serve  all 
the  higher  interests  of  the  community  seemed  to  us  a 
sound  principle,  and  we  opened  the  new  church  the  first 
winter  for  a  course  of  lectures  which  made  no  small  stir 
in  our  quiet  suburb.  The  course  included  Miss  Anna  E. 
Dickinson,  then  a  popular  speaker  on  political  and  so- 
cial subjects,  George  William  Curtis,  Bayard  Taylor,  and 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  My  first  meeting  with  Mr. 
Curtis  was  when  I  called  to  invite  him  to  deliver  this 
lecture.  He  was  then  writing  the  editorials  for  "Har- 
per's Weekly,"  and  his  work  was  done  at  a  small  pine 
table  in  the  middle  of  the  composing-room  on  the  top 
floor  of  the  Harper  Building  on  Franklin  Square.  Here 
I  found  him,  surrounded  by  printers  working  at  their 
cases,  intent  upon  his  owti  task  and  quite  oblivious  of 
what  was  going  on  about  him.  It  w^as  a  curious  envi- 
ronment for  a  nature  so  fastidious.  Mr.  Curtis  received 
me  very  genially,  and  cordially  entered  into  my  plans. 
I  visited  him  more  than  once,  after  that,  in  the  same 
place,  and  always  brought  away  from  the  interview  the 


122  RECOLLECTIONS 

impression  of  a  man  whose  kindness  was  equal  to  his 
refinement. 

With  Bayard  Taylor,  too,  I  had  two  or  three  interest- 
ing interviews,  in  connection  with  this  engagement.  On 
the  winter  night  after  the  lecture  I  joined  him  in  a  long 
walk,  and  he  talked  quite  freely  of  his  experiences  in 
Egypt  and  in  the  Norse  countries.  He  was  a  fine  speci- 
men of  a  man,  with  a  frame  fitted  for  such  adventures 
as  had  made  the  staple  of  his  life ;  and  while  his  man- 
ner as  a  public  speaker  was  not  unpleasing,  his  talk  was 
far  finer.  I  had  followed  him  round  the  world  in  the 
"Tribune,"  and  it  was  a  great  pleasure  to  hear  some  of 
the  stories  from  his  own  lips. 

Emerson's  simple  and  gracious  ways  were  very  win- 
ning. He  chatted  with  me  most  naturally  for  a  little 
while  before  the  lecture,  and  I  could  easily  understand 
how  the  farmers  of  Concord  found  him  an  agreeable 
companion.  There  was  not  a  particle  of  affectation,  and 
he  met  you  on  your  own  ground  and  talked  about  the 
things  you  were  interested  in.  I  do  not  think  that  his 
lecture  was  popular.  I  have  forgotten,  now,  what  he 
called  it ;  it  was  one  of  his  ethical  essays  —  preaching, 
of  course,  of  a  high  quality.  But  his  manner  was  so 
quiet  and  deliberate,  there  was  so  little  of  what  the 
reporters  call  "oratory,"  that  most  of  the  audience 
voted  it  rather  tame.  His  manuscript,  as  was  often  the 
ease,  was  a  pile  of  loose  leaves,  which  he  turned  over  and 
turned  back  quite  frequently,  sometimes  losing  his  place, 
and  giving  us  a  chance  to  reflect  on  what  had  been  said. 
I  remember  a  subsequent  occasion  in  Boston,  when  the 
audience  waited  for  a  minute  or  two  while  he  fumbled 


DARK  DAYS  123 

with  his  leaves.  At  last  he  got  what  he  had  been  looking 
for,  and  it  was  but  a  single  sentence,  —  the  last  sentence 
of  the  lecture.  As  we  came  out  of  the  hall  an  auditor 
said :  "We  had  to  wait  a  good  while  for  that  last  word. 
But,"  he  added  after  a  pause,  "it  was  worth  waiting 
for." 

One  of  my  Morrisania  parishioners  was  Mr.  Robert 
Bonner,  proprietor  of  the  New  York  "Ledger,"  who  had 
a  summer  home  on  the  West  Ridge,  and  who  was  wont 
to  give  me  an  airing,  now  and  then,  behind  the  swift 
steeds  of  which  he  was  so  fond.  Mr.  Bonner  was  then 
negotiating  with  Mr.  Beecher  about  a  story  for  the 
"Ledger,"  and  had  made  him,  undoubtedly,  a  munifi- 
cent offer  for  such  a  production.  He  showed  me,  one 
day,  a  letter  from  Mr.  Beecher,  promising  to  under- 
take this  work,  and  humorously  imagining  some  future 
biographer  referring  to  him  as  "this  distinguished  nov- 
elist (who  sometimes  preached)."  Mr.  Bonner  was  him- 
self quite  a  character.  Of  sturdy  Scotch  sense  and  clean 
mind,  there  was  nothing  yellowish  about  his  journal- 
ism. It  may  be  admitted  that  the  fiction  on  which  he 
fed  the  multitude  was  not  of  the  highest  literary  art, 
but  it  was  as  moral  as  a  Bowery  play.  "I  tell  all  my 
editors,"  he  said,  "  that  nothing  must  ever  appear  in  the 
'Ledger'  which  would  trouble  my  Scotch  Presbyterian 
mother  if  she  should  read  it  after  prayer  meeting." 

All  this  life  in  Morrisania  is  so  colored  and  flavored 
with  memories  of  the  war  that  it  is  hard  to  separate  its 
fortunes  from  those  of  the  nation  during  this  period. 
Of  course  the  national  interest  was  the  absorbing  inter- 


124  RECOLLECTIONS 

est ;  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion,  the  preservation  of 
the  Union,  was  not  only  our  business,  it  was  our  religion. 
The  young  men  of  our  homes  were  given  up  with  a  con- 
secration as  holy  as  that  with  which  any  gift  was  ever 
laid  upon  an  altar  of  sacrifice.  And  there  was  privation 
and  suffering  for  those  who  remained  at  home,  as  well 
as  for  those  who  enlisted.  When  the  price  of  gold  kept 
mounting  up  until  a  dollar  in  gold  would  buy  two  dollars 
and  a  half  in  currency;  when  a  yard  of  plain  shirting 
cost  thirty  cents,  and  a  pound  of  sugar  twenty-seven, 
and  a  pound  of  rump  steak  twenty-five,  people  whose 
salaries  had  not  been  raised  found  themselves  in  exigu- 
ous circumstances.  The  rigid  economies  to  which  we 
were  forced,  the  shifts  we  were  compelled  to  make  to 
supply  our  common  needs,  and  keep  ourselves  present- 
able, were  part  of  the  price  we  had  to  pay  for  the  life 
of  the  nation.  Nor  was  it  always  grudgingly  paid ;  we 
did  not  forget  the  heavier  sacrifice  of  the  men  at  the 
front. 

I  must  not  forget  that  I  am  not  writing  a  history  of 
the  war,  but  it  is  hard  to  turn  the  pen  aside  from  all 
that  made  life  in  those  days  memorable  and  significant. 
One  recalls,  with  a  sense  of  suffering,  the  long  agony 
of  the  conflict  in  Virginia,  with  the  frequent  changes  of 
commanders ;  the  great  expectations  of  McClellan,  long 
cherished  and  often  revived,  but  gradually  sinking  into 
hopelessness;  the  experiments  with  Pope  and  Hooker 
and  Burnside;  the  heartsickness  of  hope  long  deferred 
which  now  and  then  overcame  the  nation.  Through  all 
these  dark  days  the  conviction  was  growing  that  the  war 
could  not  end  without  the  destruction  of  slavery.    Lin- 


DARK  DAYS  125 

coin's  large  statesmanship  early  pressed  upon  Congress 
measures  for  the  compensated  emancipation  of  the 
slaves  of  the  border  states ;  he  beUeved  that  motives  of 
economy  as  well  as  of  justice  would  warrant  the  nation 
in  assuming  the  burden;  but  his  overtures  met  with 
scant  encouragement  from  the  people  most  concerned. 
The  border  states  declined  to  move  in  the  matter,  and 
the  President  was  driven  to  consider  emancipation  as 
a  military  necessity. 

No  single  incident  of  those  dark  days  of  1862  is  more 
vividly  impressed  on  my  mind  than  Lincoln's  answer 
to  Greeley's  "Prayer  of  Twenty  MiUions,"  for  the 
emancipation  of  the  slaves.  Greeley's  open  letter  to  the 
President  gave  voice  to  the  impatience  of  the  nation; 
the  war,  which  Seward  was  going  to  end  in  ninety 
days,  had  dragged  itself  through  a  year,  and  although 
some  light  had  appeared  in  the  west,  the  outlook  was 
gloomy.  McClellan's  Peninsular  Campaign  had  met  with 
disastrous  failure,  and  the  spirit  of  discontent  was 
abroad  in  the  land.  "We  require  of  you,"  said  the  great 
editor,  rather  magisterially,  "as  the  first  servant  of  the 
repubhc,  charged  especially  and  preeminently  with  this 
duty,  that  you  execute  the  laws.  We  think  you  are 
strangely  and  disastrously  remiss  in  the  discharge  of 
your  official  and  imperative  duty  with  regard  to  the 
emancipating  provisions  of  the  new  confiscation  act; 
that  you  are  unduly  influenced  by  the  counsels,  the 
representations,  the  menaces  of  certain  fossil  politicians 
hailing  from  the  border  slave  states ;  that  timid  coun- 
sels in  such  a  crisis  are  calculated  to  prove  perilous 
and  probably  disastrous.    We  complain  that  the  Union 


126  RECOLLECTIONS 

cause  has  suffered  and  is  now  suffering  immensely  from 
your  mistaken  deference  to  rebel  slavery."  And  there 
is  much  more,  equally  petulant  and  critical.  It  would 
seem  that  Mr.  Greeley  might  have  had  a  little  more 
patience  and  charity;  certain  it  is  that  not  all  of  the 
twenty  millions  for  whom  he  assumed  to  speak  were 
equally  skeptical  of  the  President's  purpose.  But  what- 
ever may  have  been  the  popular  disaffection  when  this 
letter  appeared,  the  President's  reply  effectually  extin- 
guished it.  Mr.  Greeley  probably  never  rendered  the 
country  a  greater  service  than  when  he  called  forth  that 
answer.  It  appeared  in  the  "Tribune"  itself,  and 
probably  every  newspaper  in  the  North  printed  it.  Few 
American  state  papers  have  been  more  universally  read, 
perhaps  none  ever  made  a  more  profound  impression. 
I  doubt  if  any  battle  of  the  Civil  War  helped  more  to  win 
the  final  victory  than  did  this  short  letter  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  It  cleared  the  air.  It  silenced  the  croakers. 
It  filled  the  whole  North  with  a  new  spirit.  It  drew  the 
hearts  of  hundreds  of  thousands  to  Lincoln  with  an 
affection  and  trust  that  from  that  day  never  wavered. 
There  is  room  for  it  here;  it  is  one  of  the  great  words 
that  must  not  be  forgotten. 

If  there  be  in  it  [your  letter]  any  statements  or  assump- 
tions of  facts  which  I  may  know  to  be  erroneous,  I  do  not, 
now  and  here,  controvert  them.  If  there  be  in  it  any  infer- 
ences which  I  may  believe  to  be  falsely  drawn,  I  do  not, 
now  and  here,  argue  against  them.  If  there  be  perceptible 
in  it  an  impatient  and  dictatorial  tone,  I  waive  it,  in 
deference  to  an  old  friend  whose  heart  I  have  always  sup- 
posed to  be  right. 


DARK  DAYS  127 

As  to  the  policy  I  "seem  to  be  pursuing,"  as  you  say,  I 
have  not  meant  to  leave  any  one  in  doubt.  I  would  save 
the  Union.  I  would  save  it  in  the  shortest  way,  under 
the  Constitution.  The  sooner  the  national  authority  can 
be  restored,  the  nearer  the  Union  will  be  "  the  Union  as 
it  was."  If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union 
unless  they  could  at  the  same  time  save  slavery,  I  do  not 
agree  with  them.  If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save 
the  Union  unless  they  could  at  the  same  time  destroy 
slavery,  I  do  not  agree  with  them.  My  paramount  object 
in  this  struggle  is  to  save  the  Union,  and  is  not  either 
to  save  or  to  destroy  slavery.  If  I  could  save  the  Union 
without  freeing  any  slave  I  would  do  it;  and  if  I  could 
save  it  by  freeing  all  the  slaves  I  would  do  it;  and  if  I 
could  save  it  by  freeing  some  and  leaving  others  alone  I 
would  also  do  that.  What  I  do  about  slavery  and  the 
colored  race  I  do  because  I  believe  it  helps  to  save  the 
Union,  and  what  I  forbear  I  forbear  because  I  do  not 
believe  it  would  help  to  save  the  Union.  I  shall  do  less 
whenever  I  believe  that  what  I  am  doing  hurts  the  cause, 
and  I  shall  do  more  whenever  I  shall  beheve  doing  more 
will  help  the  cause.  I  shall  try  to  correct  errors  when 
shown  to  be  errors,  and  I  shall  adopt  new  views  so  fast 
as  they  shall  appear  to  be  true  views. 

I  have  here  stated  my  purpose,  according  to  my  view 
of  official  duty;  and  I  intend  no  modification  of  my 
oft-expressed  personal  wish  that  all  men  everywhere 
could  be  free. 

How  fine  and  large  it  is !  Not  a  trace  of  resentment  or 
impatience,  not  an  ungracious  tone ;  the  calm  utterance 
of  a  strong  soul,  who  has  learned  the  great  prophetic 
word:  "In  quietness  and  confidence  shall  be  your 
strength."   And  how  perfect  is  the  form  of  it!   Were 


128  RECOLLECTIONS 

words  ever  handled  more  deftly?  His  sentences  go  like 
bullets  straight  to  the  mark. 

And  who  could  have  guessed  from  anything  here  said 
that  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  was  already  writ- 
ten ;  that  it  had  been  lying  for  some  weeks  in  his  port- 
folio; that  it  had  been  submitted  to  his  Cabinet  and 
approved  by  them,  and  was  withheld  only  from  the 
feeling  that  the  issuance  of  it  in  those  dark  days  might 
seem  like  an  act  of  desperation,  and  in  the  conviction 
that  it  would  be  better  to  send  it  to  the  country  on 
the  wings  of  victory?  That  was  one  of  Mr.  Seward's 
wise  suggestions,  which  Lincoln  had  promptly  adopted. 
How  little  ground  there  was  for  the  accusation  that 
Lincoln's  policy  was  dictated  by  a  ''mistaken  defer- 
ence to  rebel  slavery"  !  It  was  just  a  month  later,  after 
the  battle  of  Antietam,  that  the  Proclamation  was  pub- 
lished ;  but  this  letter  of  August  23  put  an  end  to  the 
radical  carping  against  Lincoln,  and  united  the  North 
in  his  support.  "We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham,  three 
hundred  thousand  more,"  was  the  answer  of  the  people 
to  this  call  of  their  leader.  The  enlistments  went  on  with 
new  spirit,  and  it  was  the  revival  of  hope  and  courage 
in  the  Union  army  that  gave  us  the  victory  of  Antietam 
and  prepared  the  way  for  the  Proclamation. 

I  remember  well  that  September  day  when  the  long- 
delayed  blow  was  struck  which  destroyed  slavery.  The 
New  York  State  Association  of  Congregationalists  was 
in  session  at  Syracuse ;  and  the  news  was  brought  into 
one  of  our  meetings.  Immediately  the  order  of  the  day 
was  suspended,  and  the  venerable  Doctor  Joshua 
Leavitt,  then  an  editor  of  the  "Independent,"  fornierly 


DARK   DAYS  129 

editor  of  the  "Emancipator,"  and  one  of  the  original 
members  of  the  "Anti-Slavery  Society,"  was  called 
upon  to  offer  prayer.  "What  a  cry  to  Heaven  it  was  —  of 
thanks  and  praise,  of  penitence  and  humiliation,  of  hope 
and  courage !  This  great  soul  had  long  been  waiting  for 
this  hour,  and  probably  never  expected  to  see  it.  How 
many  of  those  who  had  been  seeking  to  awaken  the 
conscience  of  the  nation  against  slavery  had  ever  cher- 
ished the  hope  that  the  end  of  it  would  come  while  they 
were  on  the  earth?  By  most  rational  men  such  an 
expectation  would  have  been  counted  visionary.  It  was 
pathetic  to  catch  the  note  of  surprise  which  mingled 
with  the  exultation  of  Dr.  Leavitt's  prayer. 

The  end  was  not  yet.  The  moral  victory  was  won,  but 
there  were  yet  dreary  months  before  the  tide  of  battle 
would  turn.  The  disasters  of  Fredericksburg  and  Chan- 
cellorsville,  and  the  dubious  combat  of  Stone  River, 
were  yet  to  follow,  while  the  irritating  and  disheartening 
opposition  of  such  men  as  Vallandigham  at  the  North 
was  a  heavy  tax  upon  the  patience  and  faith  of  loyal 
men. 

It  is  hardly  to  be  wondered  at  that  General  Lee, 
emboldened  by  his  almost  uniform  successes  in  Virginia, 
and  encouraged  by  what  he  believed  to  be  the  rapidly 
rising  tide  of  opposition  to  the  war  in  the  North,  should 
have  resolved  to  carry  the  war  into  the  enemy's  country, 
to  capture  Harrisburg  and  Philadelphia,  and  to  cut  off 
the  national  capital  from  communication  with  the  rest  of 
the  nation.  That,  he  naturally  thought,  would  bring  the 
war  to  a  speedy  termination,  and  would  secure  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  Confederacy.   His  bold  advance  into 


130  RECOLLECTIONS 

Maryland  and  Pennsylvania,  in  the  midsummer  of  1863, 
was  a  stroke  of  strategy  which  the  conditions  seemed  to 
warrant.  But  he  was  reckoning  without  his  host.  Get- 
tysburg made  it  plain  to  him  and  to  all  the  world  that 
the  will  of  the  nation  was  unbroken. 

The  anxiety  and  suspense  of  those  days  are  still,  to  a 
few  of  us,  a  vivid  memory.  When  we  knew  that  Ewell's 
corps  was  within  four  miles  of  Harrisburg ;  that  the  rail- 
way station  between  Harrisburg  and  Baltimore  had 
been  destroyed;  that  York  had  been  occupied  by  the 
Confederate  forces;  that  Philadelphia  was  threatened; 
that  business  was  completely  suspended ;  and  that  the 
people  of  the  Quaker  City  —  ministers  and  lawyers  and 
merchants,  among  the  rest  —  were  working  in  the 
trenches  to  fortify  the  city  against  the  invaders,  —  it 
can  be  imagined  that  for  many  of  those  who  lived  a  little 
further  north  there  was  not  much  calm  repose.  Yet  I 
cannot  recall  any  symptoms  of  a  panic.  Those  were 
anxious  days,  but  they  were  not  days  of  despondency  or 
fear ;  and  if  it  had  been  imagined  that  the  appearance  of 
a  Confederate  army  on  northern  soil  would  be  a  signal 
for  the  rising  of  the  disaffected  elements  in  the  North 
to  welcome  the  invader,  the  expectation  was  rudely 
overthrown.  Governor  Seymour,  of  New  York,  had  been 
one  of  the  sharpest  critics  of  the  administration,  but 
before  Ewell  could  get  to  Harrisburg,  Governor  Seymour 
had  nineteen  regiments  of  New  York  militia  in  the 
trenches  before  that  city.  In  the  presence  of  this  peril 
the  divisions  which  had  existed  among  the  northern 
people  disappeared.  And  when,  in  the  critical  and  deci- 
sive struggle  of  the  war,  the  Confederacy  gathered  up  all 


DARK  DAYS  131 

its  strength  and  hurled  it  against  the  unflinching  battle- 
line  of  Meade,  only  to  shatter  itself  against  that  ada- 
mant, we  all  knew  that  the  beginning  of  the  end  had 
come.  What  a  Fourth  of  July  was  that,  my  countrjTuen, 
when  we  read  in  our  morning  papers  these  restrained 
but  tender  words!  "The  President  announces  to  the 
country  that  news  from  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  up  to 
10  p.  M.  of  the  3d,  is  such  as  to  cover  that  army  with  the 
highest  honor,  to  promise  a  great  success  to  the  cause 
of  the  Union,  and  to  claim  a  great  condolence  for  all  of 
the  many  gallant  fallen ;  and  that  for  this  he  especially 
desires  that  on  this  day  He  whose  will,  not  ours,  should 
ever  be  done,  be  everjT\'here  remembered  and  rever- 
enced with  profoundest  gratitude." 

Yes,  we  were  alive,  that  day,  some  of  us;  and  we 
have  not  all  forgotten  how  the  landscape  grew  dim  with 
the  mists  of  thankful  tears,  and  how  our  voices  choked 
when  we  tried  to  speak  to  one  another  the  words  of 
congratulation.  If  we  could  have  known  what  news  was 
traveling  toward  us,  —  that  a  dispatch  from  Grant, 
dated  that  very  morning,  was  on  its  way  to  the  nearest 
telegraph  station,  to  let  us  know  that  Vicksburg  had  just 
surrendered,  —  the  cup  of  our  rejoicing  would  have 
been  filled  to  overflowing. 

It  would  seem  that  such  victories  should  have  resulted 
in  rapidly  recruiting  the  national  army,  but  in  fact  vol- 
unteering had  ceased,  and  the  only  resource  of  the  gov- 
ernment was  the  enforcement  of  the  Conscription  Act. 
In  most  of  the  states  this  measure,  though  very  unpopu- 
lar, was  submitted  to  -w-ithout  resistance;  but  in  New 
York  city  there  were  large   elements  of  imperfectly 


132  RECOLLECTIONS 

Americanized  immigrants  to  whom  this  exaction  was 
intolerable.  And  almost  before  the  odor  of  the  burnt 
powder  of  the  Fourth  of  July  rejoicings  had  faded  from 
the  air,  there  was  insurrection  in  New  York  city  against 
the  enforcement  of  this  law.  The  scenes  of  those  draft 
riots  one  would  gladly  erase  from  the  memory.  Such 
an  eruption  of  savagery  has  not  often  disfigured  our 
civilization.  For  two  or  three  days  New  York  was  under 
mob  rule.  The  police  were  powerless ;  the  militia  regi- 
ments were  away  in  Pennsylvania,  resisting  the  inva- 
sion, and  the  lawless  elements  were  let  loose.  Frenzied 
crowds  stormed  the  saloons  and  demanded  drink,  and 
with  their  fury  thus  rekindled,  roamed  the  streets,  deal- 
ing death  and  destruction.  The  buildings  in  which  the 
draft  had  been  progressing  were  burned  to  the  ground^ 
and  when  the  flames  spread  to  other  buildings  it  was  dif- 
ficult to  secure  the  cooperation  of  the  firemen  to  stop  the 
conflagration,  for  they,  too,  were  more  or  less  bitten  with 
the  madness  of  the  mob.  The  house  of  the  mayor  was 
assailed;  the  "Tribune"  office  was  gutted;  worst  of  all, 
the  Colored  Orphan  Asylum,  on  Fifth  Avenue,  a  philan- 
thropic institution  which  was  giving  shelter  to  several 
hundred  children,  was  sacked  and  burned.  The  negroes 
were  the  principal  victims  of  the  brutality  of  the  mob. 
The  rioters  were  inflamed  with  the  notion  that  this  was 
an  abolition  war,  and  that  they  were  being  drafted  to 
fight  to  free  the  negro.  They  proposed,  instead,  to  do 
what  they  could  to  exterminate  him.  A  dispatch  to 
Secretary  Stanton  at  9.30  on  the  night  of  Monday, 
July  13,  informed  him  that  small  mobs  were  chasing 
individual  negroes  "as  hounds  would  chase  a  fox." 


DARK  DAYS  133 

We  watched  the  city  anxiously  that  night,  from  our 
home  in  Morrisania ;  the  horizon  was  lurid  with  confla- 
grations. WTiat  would  have  happened  before  morning, 
it  is  difficult  to  imagine,  if  before  midnight  a  tremendous 
rain  had  not  begun  to  fall,  putting  out  the  fires  and 
quenching  the  madness  of  the  mob.  The  next  morning, 
however,  chaos  came  again.  The  bands  of  cixdhzation 
were  loosed,  and  arson  and  pUlage  were  running  riot. 
All  the  thieves  and  thugs  in  the  region  were  set  free 
to  work  their  will.  Men  were  held  up  and  robbed  in 
the  streets.  The  omnibuses  and  horse-cars  ceased  to 
run.  The  Harlem  and  Hudson  River  tracks  were  torn 
up,  and  there  was  no  access  to  the  city  from  the  north. 
Telegraph  lines  were  cut.  All  business  was  suspended. 

The  little  passenger  boats  on  the  East  River  con- 
tinued to  run,  and  by  means  of  one  of  them  I  managed 
to  make  my  way  to  the  lower  part  of  the  city,  which 
was  not,  perhaps,  a  prudent  adventure.  I  looked  in  at 
the  wrecked  office  of  the  "Tribune,"  and  found  the 
City  Hall  Park  opposite  filled  wdth  the  mob.  Governor 
Seymour,  it  was  reported,  was  coming  to  the  city,  and 
would  address  the  rioters.  The  throng  was  moving 
uneasily  about,  evidently  with  no  leadership  or  concert 
of  action,  and  there  was  little  noise.  WTiile  I  stood  there 
Governor  SejTnour  appeared  in  the  balcony  of  the  City 
Hall,  and  made  his  famous  address.  I  could  hear  his 
voice,  but  was  not  near  enough  to  catch  his  words. 

Much  was  made  of  the  phrase,  "My  friends,"  with 
which  the  governor  began  his  speech.  That  criticism  is, 
perhaps,  somewhat  captious.  Nevertheless,  it  was  no 
time  for  persuasion.  None  but  the  most  rigorous  mea- 


134  RECOLLECTIONS 

sures  were  adequate  in  that  emergency.  General  Wool, 
with  such  regulars  as  could  be  spared  from  the  forts  in 
the  harbor,  and  with  such  veterans  as  could  be  hurriedly 
organized  for  service,  soon  had  a  force  which  could 
make  short  work  of  mobs.  With  the  return  of  the 
militia  regiments  from  Pennsylvania,  order  was  soon 
restored ;  not,  however,  until  a  thousand  men  had  been 
killed  and  wounded,  and  a  million  and  a  half  of  property 
had  been  destroyed. 

The  suburbs,  in  the  meantime,  were  largely  unpro- 
tected, and  the  lawless  depredators,  checked  in  their 
operations  in  the  city,  were  soon  making  incursions  into 
the  outlying  districts.  It  became  necessary  to  organize 
a  Home  Guard  in  Morrisania  to  perform  police  duty; 
and  men  of  the  vicinage  volunteered  for  service,  taking 
turns  in  patrolling  the  streets  at  night.  With  my  next 
neighbor  I  served  for  several  nights  in  this  capacity, 
seeking  to  become  a  terror  to  evil-doers.  A  huge  horse- 
pistol  was  the  only  weapon  I  could  lay  my  hands  on ;  it 
was  never  loaded,  and  I  fear  that  I  could  not  have  dis- 
charged it  without  peril,  but  it  was  a  formidable-looking 
piece  of  artillery,  and  I  trusted  that  the  sight  of  it 
might  strike  dread  to  the  heart  of  any  lurking  footpad. 

A  curious  comment  it  was  upon  the  race  prejudice 
which  found  such  brutal  expression  in  these  draft  riots, 
that  while  the  ruins  of  the  Colored  Orphan  Asylum  were 
still  smoking,  Robert  Shaw  was  leading  the  storming 
column  of  the  Fifty-fourth  Massachusetts  colored  regi- 
ment in  the  assault  upon  Fort  Wagner.  ''Thirty-four 
years  later,"  says  Mr.  Rhodes,  "appeared  on  Boston 
Common  the  contribution  of  sculpture  to  this  heroic 


DARK  DAYS  135 

episode.  The  thought  and  skill  of  Augustus  Saint-Gau- 
dens  portraying  Shaw  and  his  negro  soldiers  marching 
to  Battery  Wharf  to  take  the  steamer  for  the  South,  has 
forever  blazoned  the  words  of  Lincoln : '  And  then  there 
will  be  some  black  men  who  can  remember  that  with 
silent  tongue  and  clenched  teeth  and  steady  eye  and 
well-poised  bayonet  they  have  helped  mankind  on  to 
this  great  consummation.'"  * 

From  this  time  onward  the  hopeful  symptom  was  the 
rapid  enlistment  of  the  negroes,  and  their  good  behavior 
on  the  battlefield.  It  began  to  look  as  though  the  neces- 
sity of  conscription  would  be  obviated  by  the  replenish- 
ing of  our  armies  from  this  source. 

»  History  of  the  United  States,  iv,  333. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   END   OF   THE   WAR 

Rushed  the  great  drama  on  its  tragic  way 
Swift  to  the  happy  end  from  that  tremendous  day. 
Happy,  indeed,  could  memory  lose  her  power 
And  yield  to  joy  alone  the  glad,  triumphant  hour; 
Happy  if  every  aching  heart  could  shun 
Remembrance  of  the  unreturning  one ; 
If  at  the  Grand  Review,  when  mile  on  mile 
And  day  on  day  the  marching  columns  past, 
Darkened  not  o'er  the  world  the  shadow  vast 
Of  his  foul  murder  —  he  the  free  from  guile. 
Sad-hearted,  loving,  and  beloved,  and  wise, 
Who  ruled  with  sinewy  hands  and  dreaming  eyes. 
What  soul  that  lived  then  who  remembers  not 
The  hour,  the  landscape,  ah  I  the  very  spot,  — 
Hateful  for  aye,  —  where  news  that  he  was  slain 
Struck  like  a  hammer  on  the  dazM  brain ! 

Richard  Watson  Gilder. 

Through  the  autumn  of  1863  victory  seemed  to  be 
coming  our  way,  but  with  hesitant  feet.  Chickamauga 
dulled  our  hopes,  but  Missionary  Ridge  and  Chatta- 
nooga gave  us  a  happy  Thanksgiving.  The  appointment 
of  Grant  to  the  chief  command  in  the  next  spring,  and 
the  resolute  movement  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
southward,  brought  us  all  new  hope.  But  the  battles  of 
the  Wilderness  and  Spottsylvania  tried  our  faith,  and 
the  disastrous  repulse  of  Cold  Harbor  sent  our  hopes 
down  to  zero.  There  was  nothing  between  us  and  despair 
but  the  invincible  determination  of  a  man  who  did  not 
know  how  to  be  beaten. 


THE  END  OF  THE  WAR  137 

It  was  four  or  five  days  after  Cold  Harbor  that  I 
received  a  letter,  scrawled  on  the  leaf  of  a  blank-book, 
from  my  half-brother,  who  was  a  private  in  the  Eighth 
New  York  Heavy  Artillery,  telling  me  that  my  only 
brother,  who  was  a  lieutenant  in  the  same  regiment,  was 
missing,  after  that  fatal  repulse;  he  had  fallen  at  the 
moment  when  his  regiment  retreated,  and  had  been  left 
upon  the  field.  Securing  an  appointment  for  service  in 
the  Christian  Commission,  I  started  immediately  for  the 
front. 

The  scenes  of  that  journey  are  fresh  in  my  memory. 
From  Baltimore  I  took  passage  on  the  transport  for 
Fortress  Monroe,  finding  on  my  arrival  that  Grant  was 
moving  his  army  to  the  south  side  of  the  James  River. 
Transports  laden  with  troops  were  coming  down  the 
liay  from  the  York  River,  and  ascending  the  James ;  we 
heard  that  the  bulk  of  the  army  was  moving  across  the 
Peninsula  between  the  two  rivers,  and  would  cross 
the  James  at  Harrison's  Landing.  There  wa.s  a  delay  of 
a  day  or  more  at  Fortress  Monroe,  which  I  utilized  in 
visiting  Norfolk,  and  in  passing  the  scene  of  the  fight 
between  the  Monitor  and  the  Merrimac.  A  flag  marked 
the  watery  grave  of  the  rebel  ram. 

It  was  on  a  hot  morning,  late  in  June,  that  we  steamed 
away  up  the  James,  past  the  wrecks  of  the  old  wooden 
frigates  that  the  Merrimac  had  destroyed,  past  Newport 
News  and  Jamestown  Island.  The  Confederates  had 
been  amusing  themselves  by  firing  upon  transports  at 
various  places  along  the  south  bank,  which  lent  an 
element  of  expectancy  to  the  rather  dull  journey.  One 
surprise  was  the  entire  lack  of  cities  and  villages  for  a 


138  RECOLLECTIONS 

hundred  miles  of  this  navigable  stream.  The  banks  of 
the  Hudson  and  the  Connecticut,  with  which  I  was 
familiar,  were  lined  with  towns ;  where  were  the  people  ? 
An  hour  before  sunset  we  found  ourselves  in  the 
midst  of  stirring  scenes.  The  river  was  full  of  craft  of 
every  size  and  shape  lying  at  anchor ;  beyond  this  flotilla 
was  a  pontoon  bridge  over  which  troops  were  pouring 
south  in  ceaseless  procession.  We  disembarked  and 
climbed  the  north  bank;  from  a  bluff  overlooking  the 
river,  and  commanding  the  plateau  which  stretched 
away  to  the  west  and  north,  a  spectacle  was  visible 
which  one  might  travel  far  to  see.  The  supply  trains, 
the  ambulances,  and  the  artillery  were  parked  there 
upon  that  plain,  whitening  the  summer  fields  as  far  as 
the  eye  could  reach ;  the  lines  of  the  soldiery  came  wind- 
ing across  the  plain,  and  went  filing  down  to  the  river- 
crossing.  The  men  had  been  marching  for  days ;  they 
were  grimy  with  dust  and  perspiration;  their  clothing 
had  evidently  been  reduced  to  the  minimum ;  yet  they 
were  apparently  in  good  heart.  I  stood  for  more  than  an 
hour  and  watched  them  marching  by,  exchanging  greet- 
ings with  them,  and  almost  all  of  them  had  a  laugh  or  a 
jolly  comment  on  things  visible  or  audible.  A  ponderous 
old  negro  cook  stood  simmering  over  his  evening  fire, 
just  south  of  the  line;  every  man's  head  was  turned 
toward  him,  and  every  variety  of  good-natured  chaff 
was  shouted  at  him.  There  was  little  to  choose  between 
officers  and  men  so  far  as  toilet  was  concerned,  all  were 
about  equally  disreputable;  but  the  men  were  in  good 
health,  and,  although  they  had  just  come  from  Cold 
Harbor,  they  were  full  of  good  cheer. 


THE  END  OF  THE  WAR  139 

After  sunset  we  boarded  a  transport  above  the  pon- 
toon bridge  on  which  a  portion  of  the  Sixth  Corps  was 
going  up  to  Bermuda  Hundred,  and  late  that  night 
were  landed  there,  finding  shelter  in  the  hospital  tent 
at  Butler's  headquarters.  Here,  and  at  City  Point,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Appomattox,  I  found  my  work  for 
the  next  few  weeks.  The  army  was  investing  Peters- 
burg, for  the  last  long  struggle  of  the  war.  Two  or  three 
corps  had  crossed  the  river;  Grant  himself  had  not 
yet  arrived.  His  headquarters  were  soon  established 
at  City  Point,  and  before  his  arrival  I  heli:)ed  to  pitch 
the  first  tents  of  the  post  hospital  on  the  Appomattox, 
which,  before  I  came  away,  had  grown  to  be  a  city  of 
eight  or  ten  thousand  sick  and  wounded  men. 

Immediately  on  my  arrival  I  souglit  out  my  brother's 
regiment.  At  my  first  visit  to  the  front  I  found  it  in 
the  battle-line  a  mile  or  two  from  Petersburg.  An  aide 
at  Hancock's  headquarters  showed  me  the  field  across 
which  the  trenches  ran  in  which  the  regiment  lay,  but 
admonished  me  that  no  one  could  safely  cross  that  field. 
Accordingly  I  betook  myself  to  the  field  hospital  into 
which  wounded  men  were  constantly  being  brouglit  on 
stretchers  and  in  ambulances.  It  was  a  farmhouse,  with 
ami)le  grounds  and  outhouses ;  in  the  shade  and  under 
the  slielters  two  or  three  hundred  wounded  men  were 
lying.  It  was  my  first  experience  of  this  kind  of  service. 
I  had  always  supposed  myself  to  be  an  exceedingly 
squeamish  px^rson,  liable  to  be  overcome  by  sights  of 
blood  and  suffering,  but,  for  some  reason,  the  gruesome 
sights  which  here  assailed  my  sense  did  not  disturb  me. 
There  was  work  to  do  in  caring  for  the  needs  of  these  suf- 


140  RECOLLECTIONS 

fering  men;  a  cup  of  cold  water  was  a  welcome  gift 
to  many  of  them,  and  the  cloths  that  had  been  laid 
upon  their  wounds  needed  wetting.  I  kept  myself  busy 
till  near  sundown  caring  for  these  sufferers,  and  then 
hurried  through  the  woods  to  the  headquarters  of  the 
Eighteenth  Corps,  where  my  blankets  were,  to  find  that 
that  corps  had  been  ordered  to  cross  the  Appomattox. 
It  was  a  night's  march  of  a  dozen  miles,  and  by  the  time 
we  reached  the  end  of  it,  I  was  ready  to  lie  down  by 
the  roadside  with  no  covering.  For  the  next  six  hours 
I  am  sure  that  the  heaviest  cannonade  would  not  have 
wakened  me. 

A  day  or  two  after  this,  a  chaplain  from  my  brother's 
division  brought  me  word  that  the  regiment  was  in  an 
accessible  place,  and  I  hastened  to  learn  what  I  could 
of  the  fate  of  the  missing  one.  It  was  little  that  any  one 
could  tell  me,  but  enough  to  make  it  probable  that  I 
should  never  see  him  again.  The  colonel  of  his  regiment, 
Peter  A.  Porter,  of  Niagara,  a  man  of  large  influence  in 
New  York,  had  fallen  in  the  same  charge.  The  regiment 
had  gone  into  the  Cold  Harbor  fight,  eighteen  hundred 
strong ;  the  adjutant  showed  me  his  roster  that  morning, 
and  there  were  less  than  six  hundred  names.  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Bates  was  in  command ;  I  sat  down  and  talked 
with  him  for  a  little  while  that  Sunday  morning  about 
the  experiences  of  the  last  few  days.  Within  a  week  he 
was  brought  into  one  of  my  wards  at  City  Point,  mor- 
tally wounded.  I  cared  for  him  until  the  end. 

Those  few  weeks  vnth  the  army  were  a  rather  impor- 
tant part  of  my  educational  opportunity.  I  learned 
several  things  which  are  not  taught  in  the  theological 


THE  END  OF  THE  WAR  141 

seminary;  the  close  contact  with  men,  under  circum- 
stances when  pretense  and  insincerity  were  out  of  the 
question,  was  very  illuminating.  The  men  were  exceed- 
ingly grateful  for  all  that  was  done  for  them.  The  Sani- 
tary Commission  and  the  Christian  Commission  sought 
to  render  them  a  kind  of  service  which  the  regular  hos- 
pital workers  could  not  always  command.  Under  the 
advice  of  the  physicians  we  prepared  for  the  sick  men 
various  delicacies,  we  provided  them  with  certain  com- 
forts which  were  not  in  the  hospital  supplies,  and  we 
endeavored  to  befriend  them  in  many  personal  ways. 
We  wrote  letters  home  for  them,  we  distributed  to  them 
papers  and  reading-matter,  we  sometimes  read  to  them, 
we  encouraged  them  to  call  on  us  for  any  help  we  might 
render.  Sick  men  are  proverbially  selfish  and  exacting, 
but  these  men  were  not.  "Serve  that  boy  first,  chai> 
lain;  he  needs  it  more  than  I  do."  That  was  the  rule. 
Men  thought  of  the  comfort  and  welfare  of  their  com- 
rades more  than  they  thought  of  their  own.  It  could  not 
have  been  always  so ;  there  must  have  been  selfishness 
and  meanness  among  them ;  all  I  can  say  is  that  in  all 
my  work  among  them,  I  encountered  almost  none  of  it. 
The  memorandum-book  which  I  carried  in  this  hos- 
pital work  contains  many  other  items  suggesting  the 
kind  of  service  needed.  Joyce,  in  Ward  3,  wants  a  pair 
of  crutches,  and  Gysi,  in  17,  a  pair  of  drawers,  and 
O'Neill,  in  18,  a  shirt ;  Anthony,  in  8,  craves  mustard 
for  his  salt  junk,  and  Ward,  in  1,  hankers  for  some  cheese 
and  a  Testament ;  and  Elmer,  in  3,  wants  a  comb,  and 
Underwood,  in  6,  a  pencil.  All  such  supplies  are  in  our 
store  tent,  and  it  is  a  great  pleasure  to  provide  them.  A 


142  RECOLLECTIONS 

Confederate  soldier,  in  one  of  my  tents,  who  cannot 
write,  permits  me  to  be  his  amanuensis.  He  wishes  me 
to  tell  his  wife  that  he  is  wounded  in  the  left  leg  below 
the  knee,  and  that  the  doctors  hope  to  save  it ;  in  his  first 
letter  he  requires  me  to  say  that  he  is  treated  "as  well 
as  he  could  expect  to  be."  That  is  rather  diplomatic. 
But  before  I  write  again  he  is  ready  to  make  it  much 
less  equivocal.  The  kindness  with  which  he  is  sur- 
rounded is,  evidently,  a  great  surprise  to  him.  We  do  a 
banking  business,  in  a  modest  way ;  I  find  that  I  have 
charged  myself  with  two  hundred  dollars  which  I  have 
received  from  his  chaplain,  for  Alexander  Mclvor,  who 
has  gone  to  Washington,  and  which  I  am  to  deliver  to 
him  there,  on  my  return ;  and  beneath  it  a  receipt  for  the 
amount  from  a  Christian  Commission  man  in  Washing- 
ton, who  undertakes  to  pass  it  over  to  Mclvor.  Confi- 
dence is  not  lacking. 

One  day,  going  hurriedly  into  the  tent  of  one  of  the 
nurses,  I  met  her  coming  out  with  a  short  man  in  a 
blue  blouse  and  a  slouch  hat.  Paying  no  attention  to 
her  guest,  I  did  my  errand,  when  she  confounded  me 
by  saying,  ''Do  you  know  General  Grant?"  I  came  to 
attention  very  promptly,  and  invited  the  general  to  go 
with  me  to  the  headquarters  of  the  Christian  Commis- 
sion. We  gave  him  a  comfortable  seat,  and  treated  him 
to  lemonade,  and  tried  to  learn  from  him  something 
about  the  result  of  the  hard  fighting  which  had  been 
going  on  for  the  preceding  thirty-six  hours.  We  learned 
very  little.  We  had  suffered  some  heavy  losses,  he 
said,  —  which  was  not  news  to  us ;  but  we  had  gained 
some  decided  advantages  in  position.    But  the  general 


THE  END  OF  THE   WAR  143 

was  more  interested  in  the  weather  than  in  the  details 
of  miHtary  movements;  he  was  evidently  a  man  who 
could  be  silent  in  several  languages. 

Another  day,  going  down  to  the  landing,  I  saw  quite 
a  cavalcade  coming  out  of  Grant's  headquarters.  Paus- 
ing to  let  them  pass,  I  saw  that  General  Grant  was 
accompanied  by  President  Lincoln,  mounted  on  a  tall 
steed,  and  his  little  son  Tad  on  a  pony ;  Colonel  Hor- 
ace Porter  was  also  of  this  party,  and  there  were  sev- 
eral staff  officers.  They  were  just  starting  for  the  front, 
seven  or  eight  miles  away.  Lincoln  was  wearing  a  tall 
silk  hat,  and  he  was  not  a  conspicuously  graceful  rider. 
It  was  Lincoln's  only  visit  to  the  army  before  Peters- 
burg. I  was  not  at  the  front  when  he  arrived,  but  Mr. 
Rhodes  thus  describes  it :  — 

The  President  on  horseback,  wearing  a  high  silk  hat, 
frock  coat,  and  black  trousers,  rode  with  Grant  along  the 
line.  A  civilian,  mounted,  was  always  an  odd  sight  amid 
the  crowd  of  uniformed  and  epauletted  officers;  and 
Lincoln,  although  a  good  horseman,  was  ever  awkward, 
and  now,  covered  with  dust,  presented  the  appearance  of 
a  country  farmer  riding  into  town,  wearing  his  Sunday 
clothes.  But  the  character  of  the  man  disarmed  the  keen 
sense  of  the  ridiculous  of  the  American  soldiers,  and  as  the 
word  was  passed  along  that  "  Uncle  Abe  is  with  us,"  he 
was  greeted  with  cheers  and  shouts  that  came  from  the 
heart.  He  visited  a  division  of  colored  soldiers  who  had 
won  distinction  by  their  bravery  in  Smith's  assault  on  the 
works  at  Petersburg.  They  flocked  around  the  liberator 
of  their  race,  kissing  his  hands,  touching  his  clothes  for 
the  virtue  they  conceived  to  be  in  them,  cheering,  laugh- 
ing, singing  hymns  of  praise,  shouting,  "God  bless  Massa 


144  RECOLLECTIONS 

Lincoln!"  "De  Lord  save  Fader  Abraham!"  "De  day 
of  jubilee  am  come,  shuah."  His  head  was  bare,  his  eyes 
were  full  of  tears,  his  voice  broke  with  emotion.^ 

The  weather  was  sultry  and  dry,  the  water-supply 
was  inadequate,  and  before  the  end  of  June  it  became 
evident  that  I  should  soon  be  an  inmate  of  the  hospital, 
if  I  did  not  hasten  homeward.  Very  reluctantly  I  laid 
down  that  labor.  My  note-book  bears  witness  to  that 
regret,  on  the  ground  that  "  There  is  so  much  to  do 
and  so  few  who  are  willing  to  work,  or  who  can  work, 
effectively,  for  the  temporal  welfare  of  the  soldiers." 
The  underscoring  of  "temporal"  would  seem  to  have 
some  significance,  though  I  do  not  now  distinctly  recall 
the  circumstances  which  justified  it. 

That  homeward  journey  was  a  troubled  dream.  The 
malaria  was  burning  in  my  veins,  and  the  weariness 
and  suffering  of  the  passage  by  the  fetid  transports  and 
the  crowded  railway  cars  are  a  horrible  memory.  For  a 
day  or  two  after  I  reached  home  I  hoped  to  be  able  to 
resume  my  work,  but  the  poison  was  in  my  blood,  and  a 
sullen  fight  of  two  months  with  a  slow  fever  was  ahead 
of  me.  The  vital  breath  of  the  Berkshire  Hills  at  length 
brought  me  back  to  life. 

The  last  winter  of  the  war  dragged  gloomily  by; 
Sherman's  army  was  raiding  the  South;  Thomas  and 
Schofield  were  striking  deadly  blows  against  the  Con- 
federacy in  its  western  strongholds,  and  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac  was  besieging  Petersburg  and  waiting  for 
the  hour  to  strike  when  the  long  agony  should  be  at 
an  end.    That  it  must  come  soon  seemed  probable ;  the 

^  History  of  the  United  States,  iv,  492. 


THE  END  OF  THE  WAR  145 

resources  of  the  South  were  well-nigh  exhausted,  and 
some  of  the  Confederate  leaders  were  begmning  to  talk  of 
the  terms  of  peace.  But  we  had  waited  long,  and  hope 
was  half-dead  in  our  hearts.  For  four  bitter,  wasting, 
terrible  years  we  had  been  carrying  this  load,  and  pre- 
dictions of  success  were  now  always  discounted  by  our 
fears. 

When,  therefore,  in  the  beginning  of  April,  we  heard 
that  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  had  moved  south  and 
west  with  the  purpose  of  surrounding  and  capturing 
Lee's  army,  there  was  but  a  dull  popular  response  to 
tidings  which  would  once  have  been  exciting.  And 
when  we  learned  that  Sheridan,  at  Five  Forks,  had  cut 
the  enemy's  army  in  two,  and  that  Petersburg  was 
taken,  that  was  good  news;  but  we  had  heard  good 
news  before,  and  we  dared  not  permit  ourselves  to  be 
elated.  And  when  the  dispatches  made  it  clear  that  Lee 
was  flying  away  toward  the  mountains,  and  that  our 
own  left  wing  was  pushing  ahead  to  circumvent  him, 
we  only  wondered  what  mischance  it  would  be  that 
would  dash  these  expectations.  For  a  day  or  two  the 
news  was  scanty  and  confused ;  but  at  last  that  bright 
Monday  morning  came  which  turned  the  long  winter  of 
our  discontent  to  glorious  summer. 

I  was  working  in  my  garden,  and,  looking  up,  I 
saw  my  next  neighbor,  who  was  a  Wall  Street  broker, 
come  striding  down  the  street,  his  coat-tails  flying.  He 
had  been  down  to  the  city,  and  at  this  early  hour  was 
returning,  evidently  in  a  very  exalted  mood.  He  rushed 
into  his  house  without  stopping  to  speak  to  me,  and 
immediately  came  out  with  his  flag,  which  he  hoisted  to 


146  RECOLLECTIONS 

the  top  of  his  flagstaff ;  then  he  ran  back  mto  the  house 
and  came  out  again  wdth  his  revolver,  wliich  he  began 
firing  into  the  air.  "What's  the  matter,  MacArthur?"  I 
shouted.  "Lee  has  surrendered!"  was  all  he  had  time 
to  say.  He  went  on  with  his  shooting.  At  last  he  com- 
posed himself  sufficiently  lo  tell  me  that  there  was  no 
business  down  town;  that  the  Street  had  gone  wild; 
that  the  people  were  frantic  with  joy.  Mr.  Rhodes's 
description  revives  the  scene,  which  my  neighbor  that 
morning  pictured  to  me  with  gleaming  eyes  and  hilarious 
tones  and  profuse  gesticulation :  — 

Business  was  suspended  and  the  courts  adjourned. 
Cannons  fired,  beUs  rang,  flags  floated,  houses  and  shops 
were  gay  with  the  red,  white,  and  blue.  There  were 
illuminations  and  bonfires.  The  streets  of  the  cities  and 
towns  were  filled  with  men  who  shook  hands  warmly, 
embraced  each  other,  shouted,  laughed,  and  cheered,  and 
were  indeed  beside  themselves  in  their  great  joy.  There 
were  pledges  in  generous  wines  and  much  common- 
drinking  in  bar-rooms  and  liquor  shops.  There  were  fan- 
tastic processions,  grotesque  performances,  and  some 
tomfoolery.  Grave  and  old  gentlemen  forgot  their  age 
and  played  the  pranks  of  schoolboys.  But  always  above 
these  foolish  and  bibulous  excesses  sounded  the  patriotic 
and  religious  note  of  the  jubilee.  "Praise  God  from 
whom  all  blessings  flow  "  were  the  words  most  frequently 
sung  in  the  street,  the  Board  of  Trade,  and  on  the  Stock 
Exchange.  One  writer  records  that  in  the  bar-room  of 
Willard's  Hotel,  Washington,  when  the  news  arrived, 
an  elderly  gentleman  sprang  upon  the  bar  and  led  the 
crowd  in  singing  with  unwonted  fervor  the  well-known 
doxology.   "  Twenty  thousand  men  in  the  busiest  haunts 


THE  END  OF  THE  W.\R  147 

of  trade  in  one  of  the  most  thronged  cities  of  the  world," 
Motley  wrote,  "  uncovered  their  heads  spontaneously  and 
sang  the  psalm  of  thanksgiving,  'Praise  God.'  i'.  ^ 

Nor  was  there,  in  that  outburst  of  thanksgi\dng,  much 
of  the  exultation  of  the  victor  over  the  vanquished. 
The  first  impulse  of  the  people,  as  I  recall  the  impressions 
of  the  hour,  seemed  to  be  one  of  tenderness  toward  a 
fallen  foe.  I  have  found  a  soUed  and  faded  sermon, 
which  was  preached  on  the  Sunday  after  Lee's  surrender. 

There  has  been  [says  this  old  witness]  in  the  hearts 
of  the  people  who  have  been  rejoicing,  a  sincere  pity  for 
the  vanquished.  With  our  joy  for  the  victory  there  has 
been  mingled  a  real  sorrow  for  the  army  and  the  people 
of  the  South,  —  a  sorrow  not  only  because  they  are  called 
upon  to  suffer  so  terribly,  but  that  they  are  made  to  pass 
through  such  humiUation.  If  we  could  have  saved  their 
lives  and  their  property  and  their  pride  and  at  the  same 
time  have  saved  the  nation,  I  do  not  know  who  would  not 
have  chosen  it.  There  is  nothing  hke  hatred  or  vengeance 
in  the  hearts  of  the  people  of  the  North  toward  the  people 
of  the  South.  There  has  only  been  a  stern  determination 
that  they  should  not  rend  the  nation  asunder.  ...  I 
most  firmly  beUeve  that  by  a  hearty  and  considerate  kind- 
ness to  the  southern  people  we  can  restore  the  old  rela- 
tions of  amity;  nay,  that  we  can  establish  new  relations 
of  friendship  which  shall  be  far  closer  and  more  enduring 
than  the  old  ones  were.  But  to  do  this  will  require  the 
utmost  gentleness  and  patience  on  our  part.  There  must 
be  no  more  angry  disputings,  no  more  ridicule,  no  more 
crimination  and  recrimination.  Bygones  must  be  by- 
gones. Shame  upon  the  northern  man  who  would  fling  in 

«  History  of  the  United  States,  v,  131. 


148  RECOLLECTIONS 

the  face  of  his  southern  brother  a  single  taunt!  Shame 
upon  the  northern  newspaper  that  speaks  of  the  southern 
people  in  any  other  terms  than  those  of  considerate  kind- 
ness! Shame  upon  the  Federal  officer,  whether  civil  or 
military,  who  will  not  do  all  in  his  power  to  lighten  the 
load  of  humiliation  under  which  the  people  of  the  South 
must  come  back  into  the  Union!  There  is  room  now  for 
the  exercise  of  a  true  chivalry,  —  opportunity  to  show 
our  southern  friends  that  we  know  how  tender  a  feehng 
is  wounded  pride,  and  how  to  treat  it  with  the  gentleness 
and  the  respect  that  are  the  only  medicine  adequate  to  its 
cure. 

Such  words  as  these  reflected  the  temper  in  which 
many  of  the  people  of  the  North  were  disposed  to  bring 
to  a  close  the  bitter  and  bloody  struggle.  That  Lincoln's 
great  heart  was  full  of  this  irenic  purpose  was  soon  mani- 
fest. What  he  said  at  his  last  Cabinet  meeting  was  not 
known  to  the  people  till  long  afterward,  but  it  was  indi- 
cated in  all  his  public  utterances:  "I  hope  there  will  be 
no  persecution,  no  bloody  work,  after  this  war  is  over. 
No  one  need  expect  me  to  take  any  part  in  hanging  or 
killing  these  men,  even  the  worst  of  them.  Frighten 
them  out  of  the  coimtry,  open  the  gates,  let  down  the 
bars,  scare  them  off.  Enough  lives  have  been  sacrificed. 
We  must  extinguish  our  resentments  if  we  expect  har- 
mony and  union."  ^ 

None  but  those  who  bore  the  heavy  burdens  and  the 
tormenting  anxieties  of  those  four  years  of  war  can 
imderstand  the  sense  of  relief  that  filled  the  hearts  of 
the  people  in  those  April  days.  Every  man  seemed  to  be 

*  Rhodes,  History  of  the  United  States,  v,  137. 


THE  END  OF  THE  WAR  149 

drawing  a  deeper  breath,  and  speaking  in  a  calmer  and 
more  confident  tone.  It  was  over  and  gone  —  the  hor- 
rible nightmare ;  our  hearts  were  so  buoyant  that  it  did 
not  seem  as  if  we  had  ever  known  trouble.  We  read  of 
the  unfurling  of  the  flag  over  the  ruins  of  Fort  Sumter 
just  four  years  from  the  day  on  which  it  was  lowered, 
with  a  deep  and  solemn  gladness ;  there  was  no  shouting 
or  hilarity.  The  heart  of  the  nation  was  filled  with  the 
abundance  of  peace. 

Monday,  Tuesday,  Wednesday,  Thursday,  Friday  — 
days  fuller  of  well-being  than  some  of  us  had  ever 
known.  Saturday  morning  I  went  out  to  my  doorstep 
and  picked  up  my  morning  "Tribune."  It  was  black 
with  mourning  lines ! 

Merciful  God !  WTiat  a  cry  it  was  that  went  to  heaven 
that  morning !  The  disaster  was  appalling,  but  the  grief 
was  heart-breaking.  There  are  many  living  yet  who 
will  not  deny  that  they  have  never  known  a  more 
poignant  sorrow.  Our  President  was  more  to  us  than 
the  head  of  the  government.  He  was  the  heart  of  it,  too. 
Through  all  these  years  of  agony  and  suspense  he  had 
been  winding  himself  into  the  affection  of  every  loyal 
man  and  woman,  until  those  of  us  who  had  never  spoken 
with  him  were  conscious  of  a  sacred  sense  of  friendship 
for  him.  He  had  stood,  more  and  more  firmly,  for  all  the 
things  we  cared  for  most.  He  had  spoken,  in  darkest 
days,  our  deepest  wishes,  our  dearest  hopes.  He  had  led 
us,  safely  and  triumphantly,  through  the  nation's  sorest 
testing- time,  and  had  restored  to  us  our  country,  united 
and  free.  Not  often,  in  history,  has  a  bond  so  vital, 
so  tender,  so  finely  human,  bound  together  ruler  and 


150  RECOLLECTIONS 

people.  And  when  was  any  nation  ever  so  suddenly 
plunged  from  such  a  height  of  rejoicing  into  such  a 
depth  of  sorrow? 

That  month  of  April  seems,  as  I  recall  it,  a  month 
of  years.  The  gladness  and  grief  of  a  generation  were 
crowded  into  its  momentous  days. 

Most  saddening  of  all  was  the  sudden  turn  of  the 
popular  feeling  from  kindness  to  vengeance.  At  once 
there  was  a  disposition  to  hold  ''the  South"  —  that  was 
the  popular  phrase  —  responsible  for  Lincoln's  assas- 
sination. It  was  the  impulse  of  the  unthinking  crowd; 
but  alas!  in  such  moments  it  is  the  unthinking  crowd 
which  speaks  quickest  and  loudest.  If,  at  the  moment, 
we  could  have  had  a  leader  of  clear  moral  sense  and  real 
magnanimity,  —  a  man  like  Lincoln,  —  who  could  have 
spoken  the  sane  and  convincing  word,  how  much  misery 
and  disaster  might  have  been  averted !  But  the  leader- 
ship fell  upon  a  man  utterly  incapable  of  discerning  the 
great  opportunity,  who  could  do  no  better  than  catch 
from  the  mouths  of  the  mob  their  cries  of  wrath  and 
retaliation,  and  repeat  them  from  the  seat  of  authority; 
who  vociferated  that  the  day  of  mercy  for  rebels  was 
now  past,  and  that  the  voice  of  justice  must  be  heard ; 
that  it  was  time  now  to  say  that  treason  was  a  crime, 
and  that  traitors  must  be  punished  and  impoverished, 
and  who,  before  Lincoln  was  buried,  had  issued  a  pro- 
clamation accusing  the  President  of  the  Confederacy 
and  other  officers  high  in  that  government  of  having 
*' incited  and  encouraged"  the  assassination.  With 
such  a  man  at  the  head  of  the  nation  there  was  little 
to  stem  the  tide  of  unreasoning  fury  which  swept  over 


THE  END  OF  THE  WAR  151 

the  land.  In  every  city  and  town  crowded  assemblies 
listened  to  the  voices  of  orators  who  clamored  for  ven- 
geance upon  "the  South"  for  the  murder  of  Lincoln. 
That  was  what  the  people  wanted  to  hear ;  the  fiercest 
denunciations  and  the  most  sweeping  demands  for  a 
vindictive  policy  evoked  the  loudest  applause.  If  there 
had  been  any  evidence  that  this  act  of  a  desperado  had 
been  the  result  of  a  plot  in  which  the  southern  leaders 
were  implicated,  such  an  outburst  would  have  been 
justifiable;  but  no  such  evidence  appeared,  and  the 
determination  to  hold  "the  South,"  and  especially  the 
southern  leaders,  responsible  for  this  crime  was  one  of 
the  saddest  illustrations  of  popular  injustice  that  his- 
tory records.  Even  level-headed  men  like  Grant  were 
swept  away  by  this  torrent  of  unreasoning  anger,  and  he 
issued  an  order  for  the  imprisonment  of  leading  Con- 
federate officers  of  state  at  Richmond,  and  for  the 
arrest  of  "all  paroled  officers  unless  they  take  the  oath 
of  allegiance."  "Extreme  rigor,"  he  said,  "will  have  to 
be  observed  whilst  assassination  remains  the  order  of  the 
day  with  the  rebels."  But  there  was  no  proof,  none 
that  rational  men  in  sober  mind  could  have  deemed 
worthy  of  a  moment's  consideration,  that  assassination 
had  been  made  the  order  of  the  day  by  the  rebels.  And 
it  seems  one  of  the  monumental  wonders  that  strong 
men  in  the  high  places  did  not  see  the  truth  and  speak 
to  the  raging  populace  the  word  of  calmness  and  wis- 
dom. Where  were  Sumner  and  Chase  and  Fessenden 
and  Trumbull?  Gould  they  not  see  that  just  and  mag- 
nanimous words,  at  this  hour,  were  worth  more  to  the 
nation  than  fleets  or  armies?   Some  of  these  men  to 


152  RECOLLECTIONS 

whom  we  had  a  right  to  look  for  leadership  were  egging 
on  Johnson,  in  his  violent  speeches,  and  intimating  that 
the  removal  of  Lincoln  was  providential,  since  a  man 
was  in  his  place  from  whom  traitors  need  expect  no 
mercy ! 

On  Wednesday,  the  19th  of  April,  at  the  hour  of  the 
simple  funeral  in  Washington,  religious  services  were 
held  in  most  of  the  towns  and  cities  of  the  North.  In 
most  of  these,  as  I  remember,  the  demand  for  a  rigorous 
policy  in  dealing  with  treason  made  itself  heard.  There 
were  a  few  who  did  not  feel  that  this  was  the  word  to 
speak  at  Lincoln's  bier.  My  own  little  church  in  Mor- 
risania  was  crowded  that  day,  and  I  knew  that  most 
of  those  to  whom  I  was  speaking  were  listening  for  a 
very  different  message  when  I  said  to  them :  — 

This  assassination  seems  to  have  awakened  in  the 
breasts  of  all  the  people  a  disposition  to  use  stern  and 
severe  measures  to  the  end  that  such  an  act  may  not  be 
repeated.  My  belief  is  that  stern  and  severe  measures, 
instead  of  preventing  the  repetition  of  such  acts,  will  have 
a  tendency  to  multiply  them.  But  it  is  said  that  this 
assassination  is  itself  an  illustration  of  the  futility  of 
clemency.  "  President  Lincoln  showed  a  disposition  to  be 
forgiving  to  the  rebels,  and  they  have  murdered  him. 
Does  not  this  prove  that  his  policy  will  not  work?"  I 
answer,  no.  It  proves  nothing  of  the  kind.  This  deed  of  a 
knot  of  desperadoes  in  Maryland  and  Washington  cannot 
be  fairly  taken  as  an  index  of  the  feeling  of  the  southern 
masses  or  even  of  the  southern  leaders  at  the  present  time. 
Do  we  forget  that  Mr.  Lincoln  went  to  Richmond,  once, 
twice,  and  came  home  safely?  No  attempt  was  made  to 
harm  him  there.    No  disrespect  was  shown  him.    Would 


THE  END  OF  THE  WAR  153 

it  not  be  wise,  before  preaching  a  crusade  against  the 
southern  people,  to  wait  and  hear  what  they  have  to  say 
upon  this  matter?  Some  voices  from  the  South  have 
reached  us  already.  General  Ewell,  on  his  way  to  Fort 
Warren,  heard  the  news  and  burst  into  tears,  declaring 
that  it  was  the  worst  thing  that  could  happen  to  the 
South.  The  word  from  Richmond  is  that  the  tidings 
caused  universal  sorrow.  I  do  not  learn  that  a  single  word 
has  been  heard  from  the  South  justifying  or  applauding. 
The  events  of  the  last  few  days  have  tended  to  exas- 
perate and  inflame  the  public  mind  and  to  lead  men  to 
perpetrate  vengeance,  calling  it  by  the  more  euphonious 
name  of  justice.  The  instinctive  indignation  that  rises 
in  men's  hearts  upon  the  perpetration  of  such  a  deed  is 
deepened  and  strengthened  continually  by  their  contact 
in  the  excited  crowds  of  cities,  and  it  needs  not  to  be 
nursed  and  stimulated.  It  is  easy  enough  at  such  times 
to  gain  applause  by  falling  in  with  the  popular  current. 
A  man  has  only  to  shout,  "Hang  them!  crush  them! 
exterminate  them!"  and  the  ceiUng  will  resound  with 
cries  of  approval ;  but  that  applause  is  not  worth  having. 
Rather  should  the  reason,  the  calm,  unprejudiced  reason, 
be  appealed  to;  rather  should  these  instinctive  feeUngs 
be  rigidly  challenged  and  held  in  check. 

Of  the  few  hundreds  who  listened,  a  score  may  have 
been  convinced ;  but  a  voice  like  this  affected  the  raging 
of  the  populace  about  as  much  as  the  chirping  of  the 
swallows  on  the  telegraph  pole  affects  the  motion  of  the 
Twentieth  Century  Limited. 

Let  us  confess  that  it  takes  a  stalwart  optimism  to 
stand  up  against  such  a  spectacle  as  was  presented  to 
the  eyes  of  the  w^orld  in  this  emotional  cyclone  which 


154  RECOLLECTIONS 

swept  a  whole  nation  out  of  the  ways  of  sanity,  and 
practically  destroyed  the  finer  growths  of  tolerance  and 
magnanimity  on  which  the  successful  reconstruction  of 
our  national  government  so  largely  depended.  To  me, 
at  least,  there  came,  in  those  bev:ildering  days,  a  sense 
of  the  possibilities  of  popular  error  and  madness  from 
which  I  have  never  been  able  wholly  to  free  myself. 
For  nothing  is  clearer  than  that  the  passions  engendered 
by  that  tragedy  have  left  their  blight  on  the  whole  sub- 
sequent history  of  this  nation.  The  bitter  outbreak  of 
anti-southern  sentiment  at  the  North  blasted  all  pos- 
sibilities of  prompt  reconciliation ;  it  left  the  southern 
people  angry  and  sullen ;  above  all,  it  resulted  in  that 
complete  ostracism  of  the  southern  men  of  character 
and  influence  which  was  the  one  ghastly  and  fatal  blun- 
der of  the  reconstruction  policy.  Nothing  short  of  a 
wholesale  execution  of  the  southern  leaders  would  sat- 
isfy the  sentiment  of  the  multitude  in  those  fierce  days. 
Out  of  that  hot  demand  came  forth  the  ugly  progeny  of 
measures  by  which  it  was  attempted  to  revitalize  the 
southern  body  politic  by  eliminating  its  brains.  To  this 
dire  result  President  Johnson  abundantly  contributed, 
—  first  by  his  intemperate  utterances  respecting  the 
rebel  leaders;  then  by  his  complete  volte-face,  within  a 
month,  in  the  interest  of  the  class  which  he  had  been 
denouncing.  But  it  must  be  confessed  that,  with  all  this 
muddling  at  the  White  House,  there  was  also  a  plentiful 
lack  of  sane  and  firm  leadership  at  the  other  end  of  the 
avenue. 

''That  nothing  walks  with  aimless  feet,"  in  the  great 
movements  of  divine  Providence,  is  my  deepest  faith ; 


THE  END  OF  THE  WAR  155 

and  I  am  sure  that  in  some  way  the  death  of  Lincohi 
must  be  working,  through  long  hnes  of  hidden  causes, 
for  the  ultimate  good  of  mankind;  but  I  know  of  no 
great  historical  event  which  it  is  so  hard  for  me  to 
reconcile  with  the  doctrine  of  a  wise  and  good  Provi- 
dence. So  far  as  I  am  able  yet  to  see,  the  effect  of  it  was 
wholly  calamitous.  It  removed  from  the  head  of  the 
nation,  at  the  hour  when  he  was  most  needed,  the  man 
who  was  supremely  qualified  for  its  leadership,  and  it 
left  in  his  place  a  man  who  by  temperament  and  train- 
ing was  hopelessly  disqualified  for  such  a  task.  At  the 
moment  when  the  one  thing  needful  was  the  soothing 
of  vindictive  tempers  and  the  awakening  of  the  spirit  of 
forbearance  and  conciliation,  it  fanned  the  smouldering 
embers  of  resentment  and  distrust  into  a  conflagration. 
In  the  day  when  the  supreme  need  was  such  a  hand- 
ling of  the  business  of  emancipation  as  should  enlist  the 
interests  of  the  southern  people  in  their  former  slaves, 
and  bind  the  two  races  together  in  friendship,  the  whole 
policy  seemed  to  be  directed  toward  the  fomenting  of 
antipathies  between  the  races,  and  the  employment 
of  the  blacks  for  the  humiliation  of  the  whites. 

Social  philosophers  find  the  source  of  the  social 
reforms  which  have  characterized  recent  decades  in  a 
"great  fund  of  altruistic  feeling,"  which  Christianity 
has  been  silently  accumulating  in  the  hearts  of  the 
people.  But  it  is  possible,  by  the  indulgence  of  popular 
passion,  to  propagate  and  accumulate  a  great  fund  of 
hate  and  suspicion,  which  shall  undermine  the  founda- 
tions of  society  and  make  the  work  of  social  reconstruc- 
tion well-nigh  impossible.   Bitter  indeed  have  been  the 


156  RECOLLECTIONS 

fruits  of  that  madness  which  was  engendered  in  the 
popular  mind  during  the  last  days  of  the  war.  For 
though  we  have  the  greatest  reason  for  thankfulness 
that  the  sober  second  thought  withheld  the  people  of 
the  North  from  those  extremities  of  vengeance  which, 
in  those  days,  they  were  threatening,  so  that,  in  fact,  not 
a  single  judicial  victim  was  found  needful  to  assuage  the 
popular  wrath,  yet  the  seeds  of  distrust  and  ill-will  were 
widely  and  deeply  sown,  and  through  the  entire  period 
of  reconstruction  the  nation  was  gathering  the  harvest. 

For  myself,  I  must  confess  that  if  I  had  ever  cherished 
any  fond  belief  in  the  infallibility  of  the  populace,  that 
illusion  was  forever  dispelled  by  the  spectacle  of  those 
days.  It  became  only  too  apparent  that  a  whole  people, 
swept  by  a  flood  of  excitement,  may  go  hopelessly 
wrong.  Burke  says  that  it  is  difficult  to  draw  up  an 
indictment  against  a  whole  nation.  Difficult  it  may  be, 
but  it  is  sometimes  necessary.  That  entire  populations 
are  subject  to  epidemics  of  unreason  is  historically  true. 
And  the  only  hope  for  this  democracy  is  in  the  rise  of  a 
class  of  leaders  who  have  the  courage  to  resist  the  mob, 
and  to  speak  the  truth  in  the  days  when  the  truth  is  the 
last  thing  the  people  want  to  hear. 

The  danger  in  a  democracy  is  on  the  side  of  the  emo- 
tions. So  long  as  the  people  can  be  encouraged  to 
think,  to  use  their  reason,  to  govern  their  action  by  such 
intelligence  and  judgment  as  they  are  conscious  of  pos- 
sessing, we  are  tolerably  safe.  Issues  which  are  deter- 
mined by  free  and  fair  discussion  are  generally  well 
determined.  But  when  passion  is  substituted  for  reason, 
and  political  action  is  guided  mainly  by  prejudices  and 


THE  END  OF  THE  WAR  157 

impulses  and  antipathies  and  resentments,  the  results 
are  apt  to  be  calamitous.  If  there  is  one  thing  that  this 
nation  has  need  to  guard  against,  it  is  the  prevalence 
of  hysteria  in  politics.  Such  spectacles  as  those  which 
we  are  witnessing  in  the  great  national  conventions  are 
not  reassuring.  The  attempt  to  determine  the  choice 
of  leaders  and  the  destinies  of  the  nation  by  such  fran- 
tic demonstrations  is  essentially  immoral.  We  have  no 
right  to  submit  the  great  interests  of  the  state  to  the 
arbitrament  of  an  unbridled  emotionalism.  Our  busi- 
ness is  "to  make  reason  and  the  will  of  God  prevail"  in 
politics,  and  not  to  invoke  and  organize  pandemonium 
in  the  assemblies  which  are  called  to  settle  the  great 
affairs  of  the  nation. 


CHAPTER  X 

AMONG  THE   HILLS 

Early  had  he  learned 
To  reverence  the  volume  that  displays 
The  mystery,  the  Ufe  which  cannot  die ; 
But  in  the  mountains  did  he  feel  his  faith. 
All  things,  responsive  to  the  working,  there 
Breathed  immortality,  revohing  life, 
And  greatness  still  revolving;  infinite; 
There  littleness  was  not ;  the  least  of  things 
Seemed  infinite ;  and  there  his  spirit  shaped 
Her  prospects,  nor  did  he  believe,  —  he  saw. 

William  Wordsworth. 

In  the  summer  of  1865  many  of  the  colleges  gave  to 
their  Commencement  exercises  a  commemorative  char- 
acter, and  the  Williams  Society  of  Alumni  arranged  for 
an  address  and  a  poem  celebrating  the  return  of  peace. 
For  the  latter  service  the  choice  fell  upon  me,  and  I 
had  the  honor  of  dehvering,  in  the  old  church  at  Wil- 
liamstown,  on  the  day  before  Commencement,  a  poem 
entitled  "After  the  War,"  which  sought  to  rehearse,  in 
descriptive  lines,  the  march  of  events,  and  to  reproduce 
in  lyrical  measures  some  of  the  more  salient  incidents 
of  the  great  struggle.  The  verses  were  received  with 
more  favor  than  they  deserved ;  but  the  most  important 
consequence  to  myself  was  the  presence  in  the  audience 
of  certain  members  of  the  Congregational  church  in  the 
neighboring  town  of  North  Adams,  by  whose  solicita- 
tion I  was  induced  to  spend  the  next  Sunday  with  that 


AMONG  THE  HILLS  15^ 

church.  Out  of  that  acquaintance  came,  the  next  Janu- 
ary, an  invitation  to  its  pastorate ;  and  in  the  following 
March  we  bade  farewell  to  our  old  home  in  Morrisania, 
and  turned  our  faces  toward  the  Berkshire  Hills. 

North  Adams  in  1866  was  a  smart  factory  village  of 
eight  or  nine  thousand  people,  situated  at  the  junction 
of  the  two  branches  of  the  Hoosac  River.  South  Adams, 
five  miles  distant,  was  perhaps  half  as  large.  Both  these 
villages  were  included  in  the  town  of  Adams,  which 
boasted  of  being  the  largest  "town"  in  Massachusetts. 
Within  the  territory  of  the  town  of  Adams,  which  occu- 
pied the  narrow  valley  between  the  Hoosac  Mountain 
on  the  east  and  the  Greylock  group  on  the  west,  there 
must  have  been  a  population  of  perhaps  fourteen  thou- 
sand people,  who  were  still  governing  themselves,  after 
the  manner  of  the  primitive  New  England  democracies, 
the  business  of  the  town  being  transacted  in  town- 
meetings,  at  which  all  legal  voters  were  entitled  to  be 
present.  The  town-meetings  were  held  sometimes  in  the 
North  village  and  sometimes  in  the  South ;  occasionally 
in  a  large  schoolhouse  midway  between  the  two.  They 
were  called  by  a  warrant  issued  by  the  "selectmen"  of 
the  town,  in  which  the  business  to  be  transacted  was 
definitely  set  forth  in  a  number  of  "articles."  These 
popular  assemblies  regulated  by  direct  vote  all  the 
important  public  affairs  of  this  large  community:  the 
bridges,  the  roads,  the  public  buildings,  the  schools, 
the  care  of  the  poor,  and  all  such  matters  were  under 
their  supervision ;  they  appropriated  the  money  which 
the  selectmen  might  use  in  each  of  these  departments. 
Like  the  Swiss  landsgemeinde,  the  Adams  town-meeting 


160  RECOLLECTIONS 

exhibited  a  free  people  in  immediate  control  of  their 
common  interests.  It  was  government  of  the  people 
by  the  people,  and,  so  far  as  I  was  able  to  discover,  it 
was  good  government.  There  was  no  suspicion  of  job- 
bery or  corruption ;  for  although  many  of  the  details  of 
administration  had  to  be  left  to  the  discretion  of  the 
selectmen,  they  were  too  closely  watched  to  leave  room 
for  any  malversation.  Not  all  the  voters  attended  the 
town-meetings,  but  the  numbers  were  often  sufficient 
to  crowd  the  largest  hall  in  North  Adams,  and  the 
discussions  were  keen  and  business-like.  Anything 
savoring  of  what  is  commonly  called  oratory  was  at 
a  discount;  the  assembly  would  tolerate  no  spread- 
eagleism  ;  speeches  must  be  short  and  to  the  point. 

The  time  came  when  the  affairs  of  this  densely  popu- 
lated community  became  too  complex  to  be  regulated  by 
the  people  in  mass  meeting,  and  when  the  pure  demo- 
cracy had  to  give  place  to  a  city  charter  with  representa- 
tive government,  but  during  all  my  residence  in  North 
Adams  the  primitive  form  of  local  government  prevailed, 
and  I  have  always  been  grateful  for  the  good  fortune 
which  permitted  me  to  be  for  five  years  an  interested 
participant  in  the  business  of  an  old-fashioned  New 
England  town. 

North  Adams  was,  indeed,  a  good  sample  of  a  New 
England  democracy.  All  its  traditions  were  of  an  un- 
compromising radicalism.  If  there  were  aristocratic 
elements  in  the  population  of  many  New  England  towns, 
Adams  boasted  none  of  these  things.  It  was  Sam  Adams, 
and  not  John,  whose  name  she  had  borrowed  when  her 
organization  was  set  up.  There  were  no  old  families  who 


AMONG  THE  HILLS  161 

claimed  homage  on  the  score  of  birth  or  breeding.  There 
were  a  few  men  to  whom  the  war  had  brought  large  and 
rapid  gains:  the  cotton  and  the  woolen  mills  and  the 
print  works  were  in  the  high  tide  of  prosperity,  and 
several  of  these  wealthy  manufacturers  were  building 
for  themselves  fine  houses;  but  nothing  had  yet  occurred 
to  disturb  the  sense  of  equality  which  characterized 
all  social  relations.  These  prosperous  manufacturers 
were  not  disposed  to  put  on  airs,  nor  were  their  neigh- 
bors overmuch  inclined  to  defer  to  them;  they  were 
addressed  by  their  first  names  as  they  had  always  been; 
if  one  of  them  assumed  too  much  in  town-meeting,  he 
was  as  likely  to  be  called  down  as  any  other  man. 

Indeed,  there  was  nothing  resembling  a  social  strati- 
fication in  the  society  of  North  Adams  at  that  day.  I 
have  attended  an  evening  party  in  one  of  those  new  fine 
houses  at  which  were  present  not  only  capitalists  and 
merchants  and  professional  people,  but  working  me- 
chanics and  clerks  and  operatives  in  the  mill  of  which 
the  host  was  the  owner.  Tliat  class  consciousness  which 
some  of  our  industrial  leaders  are  so  eager  to  cultivate 
would  have  been  wholly  inconceivable  to  the  people  of 
this  New  England  town  forty  years  ago. 

I  need  hardly  say  that  this  change  from  Morrisania  to 
North  Adams  was  a  most  grateful  experience.  The  con- 
ditions of  life  and  work  were  far  more  stimulating  in  the 
new  field.  In  the  suburb  of  a  great  city  there  is  so  httle 
social  contact  that  there  can  be  no  common  life ;  neigh- 
bors do  not  know  one  another ;  the  cultivation  of  local 
interests  and  enthusiasms  is  almost  impossible.  Society 
is  well-nigh  inorganic.    It  is  an  aggregation  of  social 


162  RECOLLECTIONS 

atoms  rather  than  a  vital  unity.  In  Morrisania  I  always 
found  that  any  effort  of  mine  to  influence  the  commu- 
nity reached  no  farther  than  the  few  persons  to  whom  my 
words  were  addressed ;  in  North  Adams  I  soon  discov- 
ered that  I  was  speaking  to  the  whole  community ;  that 
the  neighbors  were  taking  up  and  repeating  and  discuss- 
ing anything  which  appealed  to  them.  It  might  have 
seemed  that  in  removing  from  a  suburb  of  the  metropo- 
lis to  a  New  England  town  of  ten  thousand  inhabitants 
I  had  narrowed  my  field  of  influence;  on  the  contrary, 
it  appeared  to  me  that  I  had  vastly  extended  it. 

In  truth,  there  is  more  or  less  of  illusion  in  the  sup- 
posed commanding  influence  of  the  metropolitan  pul- 
pit. The  churches  which  exist  in  the  great  centres  of 
population  find  it  extremely  hard  to  maintain  among 
their  members  any  vital  social  relations;  attachment 
to  the  minister  is  the  only  tie  that  holds  most  of  them 
to  the  church ;  and  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  relate  the 
church,  in  any  effective  way,  to  the  community  round 
about  it.  A  church  in  a  small  city  is  likely  to  be  far 
more  closely  connected  with  the  life  of  its  own  commu- 
nity, and  thus  to  affect  more  directly  and  powerfully  the 
life  of  the  state  and  the  nation.  This  is  not  saying  that 
there  is  not  need  of  churches  in  the  great  cities,  nor 
denying  that  they  have  a  great  work  to  do ;  it  is  simply 
pointing  out  that  in  the  performance  of  the  work  they 
are  greatly  handicapped  by  the  social  conditions;  and 
that  the  minister  who  supposes  that  his  influence  is  sure 
to  be  extended  by  removal  to  a  bigger  city  does  not 
quite  comprehend  the  situation. 

The  mountains  and  the  vales  of  northern  Berkshire 


MIONG  THE  HILLS  163 

came  back  into  my  life  with  great  gifts  of  strength  and 
peace.  They  had  long  been  dear  to  me,  and  there  was 
reassurance  in  their  unchanging  message.  It  was  surely 
good  for  me  to  get  away  from  the  rush  and  roar  of  the 
metropolis  and  feed  my  soul  for  a  little  space  upon  the 
strength  of  these  steadfast  hills. 

North  Adams,  in  those  days,  was  a  wide-awake  com- 
munity, much  less  set  in  its  ways  than  the  average 
New  England  town,  hospitable  to  fresh  thinking,  not 
afraid  of  the  truth  even  if  it  was  new  truth.  There  was 
a  Scotch  deacon  against  whom  I  had  been  warned ;  he 
would  be  a  permanent  obstruction,  they  told  me.  In- 
stead of  that,  he  was  my  loyalest  supporter  from  the 
beginning.  "The  young  man  has  his  ideas,"  he  said. 
"  He  wants  to  lead.  We  want  a  leader.  Let  us  follow 
him."  That  was  the  spirit  in  which  the  church  took 
up  the  work.  No  young  preacher  could  have  asked  for 
anything  better.  There  were  no  financial  problems; 
the  people  were  sympathetic  and  enthusiastic;  never 
before  had  the  environment  been  so  stimulating.  There 
was  time  for  reading,  and  the  larger  problems  of  theo- 
logy began  to  lay  hold  on  my  thought.  Fortunately  or 
unfortunately,  I  had  not  been  charged  with  the  mainte- 
nance of  any  theological  system,  and  the  work  of  inves- 
tigation must  be  done  largely  along  independent  lines ; 
my  theology  had  to  be  hammered  out  on  the  anvil  for 
daily  use  in  the  pulpit.  The  pragmatic  test  was  the  only 
one  that  could  be  applied  to  it:  "Will  it  work?" 

An  article  or  two  contributed  to  the  New  York  "In- 
dependent," during  these  early  years  in  North  Adams, 
brought  me  cordial  words  of  recognition  from  editors 


164  RECOLLECTIONS 

and  readers,  and  opened  to  me  the  possibility  of  service 
with  my  pen,  —  a  possibility  long  coveted,  but  hitherto 
beyond  my  reach.  From  that  time  until  the  present  my 
connection  with  periodical  literature  has  been  close  and 
constant,  and  a  large  part  of  the  work  of  my  ministry 
has  been  done  through  the  columns  of  the  newspaper  or 
the  pages  of  the  magazine.  To  those  who  are  disposed 
to  put  the  work  of  the  press  into  a  rank  inferior  to  that 
of  the  oral  ministry,  it  is  sufficient  to  reply  that  the 
ministry  of  the  greater  apostles,  Matthew  and  John  and 
Paul,  seems  to  have  been  mainly  wrought  with  the 
pen.  We  can  hardly  put  the  work  of  St.  Paul,  which 
we  possess,  into  a  lower  class  than  that  of  a  traveling 
evangelist  or  a  local  pastor. 

One  of  the  first  of  the  "Independent"  articles  was 
entitled  "Are  Dr.  Bushnell's  Views  Heretical?"  A 
young  Congregational  minister  in  Illinois  had  been 
refused  ordination  by  an  Ecclesiastical  Council,  because 
he  had  indicated  his  sympathy  with  the  teachings  of 
Dr.  Bushnell  on  the  Atonement.  My  own  study  of  the 
subject  had  abundantly  convinced  me  that  in  his  main 
contention  Dr.  Bushnell  was  right ;  that  there  could  be 
no  such  thing  as  a  judicial  transfer  of  blame  or  penalty 
from  a  guilty  to  an  innocent  person;  that  the  entire 
transaction  was  within  the  ethical  rather  than  the  fo- 
rensic realm.  I  knew  that  for  me  there  could  never  be 
any  other  doctrine  to  preach  than  that  which  I  had 
learned  from  this  great  teacher;  and  if  men  were  to 
be  denied  the  privilege  of  preaching  it  in  the  Congre- 
gational ministry,  the  sooner  that  fact  was  known  the 
better  it  would  be  for  me.   Accordingly  I  set  forth,  as 


AMONG  THE  HILLS  165 

clearly  as  I  could  in  a  brief  article,  the  substance  of  Dr. 
Bushnell's  teaching,  and  expressly  committed  myself 
to  it,  declaring  that  if  this  was  heresy  I  desired  to  be 
counted  among  the  heretics,  and  offering  the  right  hand 
of  fellowship  to  the  young  man  who  had  been  rejected 
for  teaching  it. 

I  had  never  known  Dr.  Bushnell,  but  this  article 
brought  me  a  letter  from  him  so  cordial  and  grateful 
that  it  touched  me  deeply.  He  was  living  in  Hartford, 
no  longer  in  active  service,  with  broken  health;  and 
although,  in  his  disabled  condition,  no  open  warfare  was 
made  upon  him,  and  he  was  still  in  good  ecclesiastical 
standing  in  the  Congregational  body,  yet  "Bushnell- 
ism"  was  under  the  ban,  and  there  were  few  Congrega- 
tional ministers  who  were  willing  to  confess  their  accept- 
ance of  it.  So  it  was  that  this  old  hero,  who  had  fought 
and  won  the  battle  for  the  moralization  of  theology,  was 
not  yet  permitted  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  his  labors,  in  the 
full  and  grateful  recognition  of  his  brethren;  and  that 
this  frank  avowal  of  indebtedness  to  him,  made  by  a 
person  wholly  obscure  and  unknown  to  him,  was  suffi- 
cient to  bring  forth  from  him  this  expression  of  his 
gratitude.  It  was  evident  that  he  needed,  even  then, 
such  comfort  as  my  poor  letter  could  give  him.  It  was 
good  to  know  that  a  word  from  such  a  source  had  com- 
forted him,  but  it  was  tragical  to  think  that  he  could 
have  needed  it. 

Thus  began  a  friendship  which,  in  its  influence  upon 
my  life,  was  one  of  the  most  stimulating  that  I  have 
known.  Not  many  months  after  this,  the  question  of 
my  own  installation  over  the  North  Adams  church  was 


166  RECOLLECTIONS 

raised.  On  coming  to  North  Adams  I  had  stipulated 
that  there  should  be  no  formal  settlement  for  the  first 
year;  if,  at  the  end  of  that  time,  both  parties  were 
agreed  to  make  it  permanent,  the  installation  might 
take  place.  At  the  end  of  the  year  the  church  signified 
its  wish  that  I  should  remain,  and  a  council  was  called. 
At  once  I  wrote  to  Dr.  Bushnell,  asking  him  to  come  and 
preach  the  sermon.  His  health  was  infirm,  but  he  occa- 
sionally preached,  and  I  hoped  that  he  might  be  willing 
to  perform  that  service  for  me.  His  reply  was  charac- 
teristic. He  thought  it  highly  imprudent  for  me  to  take 
upon  myself  the  odium  which  might  be  incurred  in  asso- 
ciating myself  with  one  whose  standing  was  question- 
able; it  might  make  trouble  for  me;  it  would  put  the 
heresy-hunters  on  the  scent ;  it  would  be  far  wiser  for  me 
to  invite  a  safer  man.  ]\Iy  answer  was  that  I  wanted  him 
and  nobody  else,  and  that  I  was  prepared  to  accept  the 
consequences.  To  this  challenge  his  reply  was  prompt, 
and  he  came  and  spent  nearly  a  week  with  me,  before 
the  installation. 

Those  were  great  days,  driving  over  the  Berkshire 
Hills,  lying  in  the  shade,  talking  of  things  visible  and 
invisible,  meditating  upon  the  mysteries  of  the  heavens 
above  and  the  earth  beneath.  Horace  Bushnell  was  one 
of  the  great  talkers.  There  was  something  Carlylean  in 
his  rugged  rhetoric  and  the  raciness  of  his  metaphors; 
and  his  homely  speech  was  lit  up  with  poetic  touches 
which  made  it  a  delight  to  listen.  He  had  a  keen  eye  for 
natural  beauty,  and  the  glories  of  those  Berkshire  Hills 
filled  him  with  rejoicing.  He  told  me  much  about  his 
life  in  California,  and  about  his  search  for  the  site  of  the 


AMONG  THE  HILLS  167 

university ;  for  it  is  to  him  that  the  Golden  State  owes 
the  ideal  location  of  the  State  University  at  Berkeley. 
It  was  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  that  he,  an 
invalid,  seeking  health  among  the  mountains  and  foot- 
hills of  that  new  commonwealth,  should  have  taken  up 
and  solved  that  vital  question,  convincing  the  Califor- 
nians  of  the  wisdom  of  his  choice,  and  thus  rendering 
to  the  state  a  gratuitous  service  of  the  highest  value. 
Similar  to  this  was  his  work  for  his  own  city  of  Hart- 
ford, whose  beautiful  park,  that  bears  his  name,  was 
secured  by  his  sagacity  and  persistence.  While  he  was 
sojourning  with  me,  in  North  Adams,  he  came  in,  one 
morning,  from  a  walk  which  he  had  been  taking  before 
breakfast,  saying:  "I've  found  the  place  for  your  park. 
Now  go  to  work  and  get  it."  It  was  the  right  location 
beyond  a  doubt;  and  if  I  had  possessed  his  power  of 
getting  things  done,  I  might  have  rendered  a  great  ser- 
vice to  that  thriving  Berkshire  town. 

Dr.  Bushnell  was,  beyond  a  question,  the  greatest 
theological  genius  of  the  American  church  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  but  the  facts  which  I  have  recited  show 
that  he  was  something  more  than  a  theorizer ;  his  grasp 
of  reality  was  very  firm,  and  he  had  a  statesman's  vision 
of  human  needs  and  possibilities. 

The  council  for  the  installation  brought  together  the 
ministers  and  delegates  of  the  Congregational  churches 
of  northern  Berkshire,  —  among  them  President  Hop- 
kins, from  the  Williams  College  church,  and  his  stalwart 
brother  Albert,  Dr.  John  Todd,  of  Pittsfield,  and  others. 
It  was  naturally  an  occasion  of  some  solicitude  to  me ; 
what  might  happen  to  me  in  view  of  my  explicit  avowals 


168  RECOLLECTIONS 

of  heretical  doctrine,  I  could  not  tell.  Of  one  thing  I 
felt  pretty  sure.  The  church  was  satisfied  with  my 
work,  and  the  council  would  hesitate  to  forbid  the  work 
to  go  on.  That  proved  to  be  the  decisive  consideration. 
Dr.  Todd,  who  was  the  moderator  of  the  council,  was 
plainly  unwilling  that  the  council  should  explicitly  tol- 
erate my  heresies,  but  he  would  not  risk  the  wrath  of  the 
church  by  refusing  me  installation ;  so  he  skillfully  con- 
ducted the  examination  over  ground  on  which  there 
was  no  chance  of  discussion,  and,  after  about  twenty 
minutes,  brought  it  to  an  abrupt  conclusion.  It  was 
a  palpable  evasion,  but  I  was  not  responsible  for  it. 
"I  thought,"  said  Dr.  Todd  to  me  after  the  examina- 
tion, "that  you  were  a  great  heretic."  ''Perhaps  I 
am,"  I  answered;  "but  you  didn't  bore  in  the  right 
place." 

Dr.  Bushnell's  sermon  on  the  occasion  is  included  in 
his  volume,  "  Sermons  on  Living  Subjects,"  —  "The  Gos- 
pel of  the  Face"  is  the  title.  Dehvered,  as  it  was,  in  a 
voice  somewhat  impaired  by  illness,  and  with  little  of 
physical  vigor,  it  was  yet  a  most  impressive  utterance. 
One  could  see  how  perfectly  his  dehvery  had  been 
adapted  to  his  written  style;  one  could  catch  even  in 
those  broken  tones  the  ring  of  irresistible  convictions. 
"Is  not  that  the  Gospel?"  some  one  asked  Dr.  Hopkins, 
after  the  service.  "Nothing  else  is  the  Gospel,"  was  his 
prompt  reply. 

One  episode  of  the  North  Adams  ministry  has  a  whim- 
sical interest,  as  a  revelation  of  the  ascetic  notions 
then  almost  universally  prevailing  respecting  popular 
amusements.  A  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  had 


AMONG  THE  HILLS  169 

been  organized,  and  in  opening  new  rooms  for  the  society, 
the  question  arose  whether  amusements  of  any  kind 
should  be  admitted.  The  proposition  was  received  with 
some  disfavor,  and  a  conference  of  ministers  and  lead- 
ing laymen  was  called  to  advise  the  officers.  All  that 
was  proposed  was  that  a  small  room  be  set  apart  in 
which  checkers,  chess,  and  backgammon  might  be 
played  by  those  who  did  not  care  to  read.  These  were 
the  only  three  games  which  were  to  be  tolerated ;  cards 
were  to  be  rigidly  excluded;  billiards  were  not  to  be 
allowed;  but  it  was  urged  by  some  of  the  more  daring 
spirits  that  it  would  be  safe  to  permit  the  young  men  to 
play  checkers  and  chess  and  backgammon.  That  view 
of  the  case  commended  itself  to  me ;  but  I  found  myself, 
at  the  Conference,  in  a  small  minority.  All  my  brethren 
in  the  ministry  very  positively  disagreed  with  me;  to 
them  it  seemed  highly  dangerous  to  allow  worldly  amuse- 
ments of  any  kind  to  be  practiced  in  a  place  for  whose 
management  the  churches  were  responsible.  Most  of 
them,  indeed,  took  the  ground  that  amusement  of  any 
kind  was  to  be  deprecated,  as  withdrawing  the  thought 
from  those  serious  concerns  upon  which  it  should  be 
fixed;  that  a  truly  converted  man  needed  no  diver- 
sions ;  that  the  joys  of  religion  alone  should  satisfy  the 
soul.  And  I  found  myself  subjected  by  my  brethren  in 
the  ministry  to  a  sharp  cross-examination  respecting 
my  own  views  on  various  popular  amusements,  in  the 
course  of  which  I  expressed  opinions  that  to  some  of 
them  appeared  little  short  of  scandalous.  The  propo- 
sition to  have  an  amusement  room  in  the  hall  of  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  was  incontinently  voted  down ;  to  no  such 


170  RECOLLECTIONS 

dangerous  innovation  as  that  could  these  good  people 
be  brought  to  consent.  And  the  reports  which  went 
abroad  from  that  conference  respecting  what  the  Con- 
gregational minister  had  said  in  it  were  of  a  character 
so  inflammatory  that  I  thought  it  best  to  set  myself 
right  by  a  sermon  on  "Amusements;  their  Uses  and 
Abuses."  The  sermon  was  heard  by  a  crowded  audi- 
ence, and  was  afterwards  printed.  As  I  read  it  to-day, 
it  is  diflficult  to  believe  that  such  an  argument  could 
have  been  needed  in  defense  of  a  rational  use  of  diver- 
sion. When  one  visits  the  rooms  of  the  Christian  Asso- 
ciations to-day,  in  all  the  cities,  and  observes  the  extent 
to  which  the  play  impulse  is  provided  for,  and  the  wide 
range  that  is  given  to  innocent  and  healthy  recreations, 
he  is  able  to  see  that  considerable  change  has  taken 
place  in  public  opinion.  It  was  only  the  next  summer 
after  our  controversy  in  North  Adams  that  the  same 
question  was  brought  before  the  International  Conven- 
tion of  Young  Men's  Christian  Associations  at  Montreal ; 
and  there  the  proposition  that  amusements,  carefully 
guarded,  be  offered  to  the  young  men  of  the  Associa- 
tions was  blown  out  of  the  meeting  by  a  whirlwind 
of  popular  wrath.  The  men  who  had  ventured  to  stand 
for  it  were  made  to  feel  that  they  had  deeply  offended 
against  the  piety  of  their  brethren,  and  had  forfeited 
their  right  to  leadership  in  the  body.  I  have  rarely  wit- 
nessed an  outbreak  of  intolerance  more  rank  than  that 
which  triumphed  in  this  Montreal  Convention.  Yet  it 
was  not  many  years  before  the  policy  so  hotly  disap- 
proved was  universally  adopted  by  the  Christian  Asso- 
ciations. 


AMONG  THE  HILLS  171 

One  reason  why  the  ascetic  view  of  the  amusement 
question  came  to  be  discredited  in  North  Adams  may 
have  been  found  in  the  fact  that  the  minister  who 
undertook  the  leadership  of  the  crusade  against  amuse- 
ments, and  who  preached  several  violent  sermons,  in 
which  he  maintained  that  all  sport  is  sinful  and  that 
true  piety  has  no  place  in  it  for  any  other  enjoyments 
than  those  which  are  purely  religious,  was  discovered  a 
few  weeks  afterward  to  have  eloped  with  a  young  wo- 
man of  his  congregation,  and  to  have  feigned  suicide  by 
drowning,  in  order  to  cover  his  flight  to  a  distant  state. 
His  arguments  did  not  need  this  kind  of  confutation, 
nevertheless  there  were,  undoubtedly,  those  whose  hold 
upon  the  bad  logic  was  shaken  by  the  conduct  of  the 
advocate. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  fact  that  the  labor  question 
had  not  made  its  appearance  in  North  Adams,  at  the 
time  when  I  made  my  home  there.  Before  my  depar- 
ture it  arrived,  in  a  somewhat  virulent  form.  In  one  of 
the  largest  shoe-factories  a  disagreement  about  wages 
resulted  in  a  lock-out.  The  doors  of  the  factory  were 
closed  for  several  weeks,  during  which  time  repeated 
attempts  to  fill  the  shop  with  workmen  were  foiled  by 
concerted  movements  of  the  men  out  of  work,  who  met 
the  incoming  strike-breakers  at  the  railway  station  and 
persuaded  them  to  return.  No  violence  was  used,  but 
the  picketing  was  effectual,  and  the  employers  were 
unable  to  start  their  machinery.  After  an  ominous 
silence  of  a  few  weeks,  word  came  that  the  superin- 
tendent of  the  factory  was  on  his  way  from  San  Fran^ 


172  RECOLLECTIONS 

Cisco  with  a  force  of  Chinamen  large  enough  to  man  the 
shop.  The  town  was  ablaze  with  excitement,  and  there 
were  dire  threats.  When  the  train  arrived,  the  streets 
between  the  railway  station  and  the  factory  were  lined 
with  an  excited  crowd,  but  the  police  were  out  in  force, 
and  no  violence  was  attempted.  All  kinds  of  noises 
and  execrations  assailed  the  ears  of  the  slant-eyed 
Mongolians  as  they  marched  to  their  destination,  and 
the  poor  creatures  were  terribly  frightened,  but  they 
escaped  with  no  injuries.  In  fact,  the  curiosity  of  the 
crowd  was  so  acute  that  its  brutality  was  held  in  check. 
These  pig-tailed,  calico-frocked,  wooden-shod  invaders 
made  a  spectacle  which  nobody  wanted  to  miss  even 
long  enough  to  stoop  for  a  brickbat.  But  all  of  us  who 
looked  on  were  profoundly  grateful  that  the  entrance 
had  been  effected  without  bloodshed. 

A  loft  of  the  factory  was  fitted  up  with  bunks  for 
the  Chinamen,  and  their  own  cooks  provided  their  food 
within  the  walls,  so  that  they  had  little  occasion  to  be 
out  on  the  streets.  Few  if  any  of  them  knew  anything 
of  the  shoe-trade,  and  it  became  necessary  to  teach  them 
all,  even  the  simplest  processes ;  it  was  several  months 
before  the  output  of  the  factory  approximated  to  what 
it  had  been  with  white  labor.  But  the  Chinamen  were 
fairly  apt  pupils,  and  at  length  it  was  reported  that  the 
experiment  had  justified  itself,  and  that  the  profits  were 
satisfactory.  It  had  been  necessary,  however,  to  make 
a  Jong  contract  with  the  men,  to  cover  the  losses  sus- 
tained in  the  period  of  pupilage ;  and  when  the  terms  for 
which  they  were  engaged  had  expired,  most  of  them 
slipped  away  to  other  occupations,  and  the  fear  that 


AMONG  THE  HILLS  173 

the  industries  of  New  England  were  to  be  "ruined  by 
Chinese  cheap  labor"  was  laid  to  rest. 

On  the  whole,  the  venture  can  hardly  be  regarded  as 
a  success  from  any  point  of  view.  The  social  condi- 
tions under  which  these  Chinamen  were  forced  to  live 
and  work  were  not  normal;  industry  which  can  be 
maintained  only  under  such  conditions  might  as  well 
be  abandoned. 

The  self-restraint  of  the  working-people  of  North 
Adams,  in  the  presence  of  this  irritating  spectacle,  was 
a  cause  for  gratitude.  Although  these  Chinamen  con- 
tinued to  live  in  the  community  for  several  years,  there 
was  very  little  disposition  to  interfere  with  them ;  they 
were  permitted  to  go  and  come  without  insult  or  annoy- 
ance. The  philanthropists  of  the  community  soon  made 
these  Orientals  the  object  of  their  care,  and  various  well- 
meant  endeavors  to  teach  them  the  English  language 
and  fit  them  for  self-support  and  citizenship  were 
promptly  set  in  operation.  In  truth,  the  experience  of 
North  Adams  with  the  Chinamen  was  an  encouraging 
instance  of  the  absorbent  power  of  good  sense  and  good 
will  in  an  American  community,  in  deahng  with  an  acute 
case  of  social  infiannuation. 

It  was  during  the  summer  of  186S  that  my  first  ven- 
ture was  made  in  the  field  of  authorship.  A  series  of 
Sunday  evening  lectures  to  young  people  had  been  con- 
densed into  weekly  articles  for  the  Springfield  "Repub- 
lican," and  when  the  series  was  finished  I  collected  them 
and  sent  them  to  Ticknor  and  Fields,  under  the  title 
"Plain  Thoughts  on  the  Art  of  Living."  Their  prompt 


174  RECOLLECTIONS 

acceptance,  as  no  writer  of  books  needs  to  be  told,  was 
an  experience  wholly  unique,  never  to  be  repeated.  The 
first  book  and  the  first  baby  are  in  a  class  by  them- 
selves. It  has  always  been  quite  impossible  that  any 
Hterary  success  should  ever  loom  so  large  in  my  con- 
sciousness as  this  one  did. 

It  was  during  my  residence  in  North  Adams  that 
another  literary  enterprise  was  launched  in  which  I 
was  destined  to  have  a  large  interest.  Dr.  Holland  and 
Roswell  Smith,  with  Charles  Scribner,  had  organized  a 
company  for  the  publication  of  a  new  magazine,  to  be 
known  as  "  Scribner' s  Monthly  " ;  and  Dr.  Holland  came 
to  North  Adams  to  arrange  for  an  illustrated  article 
upon  the  Hoosac  Tunnel,  then  being  cut  through  the 
Hoosac  Mountain  in  the  neighborhood  of  North  Adams. 
The  preparation  of  that  article  was  assigned  to  me,  and 
but  for  my  illness,  it  would  have  appeared  in  the  first 
number  of  the  "  Monthly."  It  went  into  the  second 
number,  and  thus  began  a  connection  with  the  maga- 
zine, as  contributor,  which  continued  for  many  years, 
and  proved  of  great  profit  and  satisfaction  to  me.  Dr. 
Holland  and  his  associates,  both  in  the  "Scribner's 
Monthly"  and  in  the  "Century  Magazine"  (by  which 
name  the  periodical  has  long  been  known),  were 
always  free  to  call  on  me  for  needed  work,  and  the 
kind  of  service  required  was  in  the  highest  degree 
congenial.  If  one  has  a  mind  to  use  his  pen  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  public,  it  is  a  great  thing  to  have  a  medium 
of  communication  whose  cleanness  and  integrity  are 
unquestioned,  and  I  have  always  esteemed  it  an  honor 
to  have  been  permitted  to  work  with  men  whose  jour- 


AMONG  THE  HILLS  175 

nalistic  aims  were  never  below  the  highest.  There  was 
a  touch  of  pathos,  for  me,  in  the  fact  that  Dr.  Holland's 
last  work  on  earth  was  the  reading  of  the  proof  of  an 
editorial  of  mine,  which  he  marked  "0.  K.,"  and  locked 
within  his  desk  as  he  went  home  in  the  evening.  His 
death  occmred  that  night.  It  was  good  to  get  from 
my  dear  old  friend  that  final  verdict.  I  wished  that  I 
might  dare  to  give  it  a  broader  interpretation. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   FOOLISHNESS   OF  RECONSTRUCTION 

Gather  you,  gather  you,  angels  of  God, 

Freedom  and  Mercy  and  Truth ; 
Come,  for  the  earth  is  grown  coward  and  old, 

Come  down,  and  renew  us  her  youth ; 
Wisdom,  self-sacrifice,  daring  and  love, 
Haste  to  the  battlefield,  stoop  from  above, 
To  the  Day  of  the  Lord  at  hand. 

Charles  Kingsley. 

During  these  quiet  days  in  North  Adams  the  great 
affairs  of  the  nation  were  in  a  tumultuous  state.  The 
egotism  and  obstinacy  of  President  Johnson  were  well 
matched  by  the  vindictiveness  of  Thaddeus  Stevens  and 
the  quixotic  idealism  of  Charles  Sumner,  and  amongst 
them  they  kept  the  witches'  cauldron  steaming.  As  I 
recall  the  moral  attitude  of  the  northern  people  in  those 
days,  it  seems  that  they  had  but  a  dim  apprehension  of 
the  nature  of  the  forces  with  which  they  were  dealing. 
Four  years  of  war  are  certainly  not  a  good  school  in 
which  to  learn  the  arts  of  peace.  It  could  hardly  be 
expected  that  the  conquerors  in  such  a  fierce  conflict 
would  find  themselves  at  the  end  of  it  prepared  to  be 
wholly  just  and  magnanimous  to  those  whose  revolt 
against  the  national  authority  had  caused  them  so  much 
loss  and  suffering.  And  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the 
average  northern  man  found  it  difficult,  in  thinking 
of  his  southern  fellow  citizens,  to  rid  himself  of  some 
rankling  resentments. 


FOOLISHNESS  OF  RECX)NSTRUCTION    177 

One  capital  fact  of  the  situation  was  scarcely  appre- 
hended by  the  northern  people.  They  did  not  realize, 
as  fully  as  they  are  now  able  to  do,  that  the  war  was 
primarily  a  struggle  between  two  conflicting  theories 
of  the  nature  of  our  government.  The  southern  people 
generally  believed  that  the  United  States  were  a  confed- 
eracy of  sovereign  states ;  the  northern  people  believed 
that  the  United  States  was  a  nation.  The  superior  alle- 
giance of  the  southern  man  was  due  to  his  state;  the 
superior  allegiance  of  the  northern  man  was  due  to  the 
United  States.  Robert  E.  Lee  believed  that  Virginia  had 
the  supreme  right  to  his  loyal  service ;  Ulysses  S.  Grant 
believed  that  the  sovereignty  belonged  to  the  Gov- 
ernment at  Washington.  This  was  an  issue  that  had 
to  be  decided ;  the  two  theories  were  irreconcilable ;  one 
or  the  other  must  prevail.  The  theory  of  the  North,  the 
national  theory,  did  prevail ;  this  was  the  fundamental 
question  settled  by  the  war.  But  the  people  of  the  North 
needed  to  remember  that  the  people  of  the  South  were 
brought  up  on  the  other  theory ;  that  they  adhered  to 
it  with  all  honesty  and  good  faith,  and  that  there  was 
much  in  the  history  of  our  national  development  to  sub- 
stantiate their  claim. 

When,  therefore,  we  denounced  them  as  rebels  and 
traitors,  and  insisted  on  putting  that  moral  stigma  upon 
them,  we  were  much  less  than  just.  Robert  E.  Lee,  as 
I  have  said,  believed  that  his  first  allegiance  was  due 
to  Virginia ;  that  the  claim  of  the  Union  on  him  was 
a  secondary  claim.  When  Virginia  seceded  from  the 
Union  and  summoned  him  to  draw  his  sword  in  her 
defense,  he  would  have  been  a  conscious  traitor  if  he  had 


178  RECOLLECTIONS 

refused.  Thus  it  was  not  true  that  the  southern  people 
deserved  at  the  hands  of  the  North  the  severe  moral 
judgment  which  was  visited  upon  them.  They  held  a 
false  and  fatal  theory  of  our  political  relations,  but  they 
held  it  honestly,  and  are  not  to  be  judged  by  a  standard 
to  which  they  had  never  consented. 

The  failure  to  make  this  distinction  lent  bitterness  to 
the  whole  process  of  reconstruction.  It  was  hard  for  the 
average  northern  man  to  believe  that  southern  "rebels" 
and  "traitors"  could  be  honorable,  loyal,  trustworthy 
men;  he  was  inclined  to  regard  them  as  essentially 
treacherous.  The  leaders  in  Congress  ought  to  have  been 
able  to  take  a  larger  view ;  some  of  them  did,  but  unhap- 
pily the  dominant  spirits  were  men  of  narrow  vision  and 
vindictive  temper,  and  there  was  enough  bitterness  in 
the  popular  mind  to  sustain  them  in  the  enactment  of 
measures  which  made  the  speedy  restoration  of  peace 
to  the  South  a  moral  impossibility. 

There  was  another  strong  reason  why  the  northern 
people  were  inclined  to  make  strenuous  terms  with 
the  South  —  that  was  their  determination  to  protect 
the  negroes.  WTiatever  arrangements  were  made  for  the 
restoration  of  the  state  governments  in  the  South  must 
include  guaranties  for  the  freedom  and  welfare  of  the 
emancipated  slaves.  How  much  the  intelligence  and 
good  will  of  the  former  masters  would  be  needed  in 
securing  this,  they  did  not  know ;  they  had  very  little 
faith  in  any  help  from  this  source ;  and  they  had  unlim- 
ited faith  in  the  ability  of  the  negro  to  take  care  of 
himself  if  the  suffrage  was  given  him.  There  was,  there- 
fore, an  honest  and  laudable  purpose  behind  these  recon- 


FOOLISHNESS  OF  RECONSTRUCTION    179 

struction  measures.  The  people  of  the  North  were 
responsible  for  having  given  the  negro  his  freedom,  and 
they  were  bound  to  see  that  it  did  not  prove  a  curse  to 
him.  Nevertheless,  it  was  a  sad  muddle  they  made  of  it. 
To  imagine  that  it  was  possible,  by  any  political  device 
whatever,  to  invert  the  natural  order  of  society,  and 
give  to  the  ignorance  of  the  community  the  supremacy 
over  its  intelligence,  was  an  infatuation  to  which 
rational  legislators  ought  not  to  have  been  subject.  Nor 
ought  it  to  have  required  such  costly  tuition  to  convince 
an  intelligent  people  that  the  ballot,  in  the  hands  of 
voters  who  are  utterly  unfitted  to  use  it,  has  no  magical 
power  to  transform  them  into  useful  citizens,  but  can 
only  prove  their  own  undoing. 

The  reconstruction  measures,  which  were  based  on 
the  disfranchisement  of  the  people  of  intelligence  and 
character,  and  the  enthronement  of  the  illiterate  and 
degraded,  and  which  were  given  efficacy  by  the  complete 
prostration  of  the  civil  before  the  military  power,  thus 
sowed  the  South  with  dragon's  teeth,  whose  crop  will 
not  be  fully  harvested,  lo,  these  many  years.  Those 
of  us  who  were  living  in  Massachusetts  then  are  able 
to  recall  with  some  satisfaction  the  attitude  of  our 
own  great  war  governor,  Andrew,  to  whom  the  futility 
of  these  methods  was  obvious.  ""\Miy  not,"  he  cried, 
"try  the  natural  leaders  of  opinion  in  the  South?  They 
are  the  most  hopeful  subjects  to  deal  with,  in  the  very 
nature  of  the  case.  They  have  the  brain  and  the  experi- 
ence and  the  education  to  enable  them  to  understand  the 
exigencies  of  the  present  situation.  They  have  the  cour- 
age, as  well  as  the  skill,  to  lead  the  people  in  the  direc- 


180  RECOLLECTIONS 

tion  their  judgments  point,  in  spite  of  their  own  and  the 
popular  prejudice."  There  is  no  doubt  that  if  these 
''natural  leaders  of  opinion"  had  been  taken  into  con- 
sultation, they  would  have  agreed  to  the  gradual  en- 
franchisement of  the  negroes.  Thus  we  should  have 
been  spared  that  hopeless  separation  of  the  races  and 
that  violent  exacerbation  of  racial  hostility  which  the 
attempt  to  establish  negro  supremacy  inevitably  pro- 
voked. 

Another  of  the  puerilities  of  our  politics  in  this  period 
was  the  attempt  to  impeach  President  Johnson.  This 
was  the  culmination  of  Johnson's  quarrel  with  Congress, 
a  wrangle  in  which  neither  party  was  entitled  to  much 
sympathy.  Congress  had  been  seeking  in  every  possible 
way  to  tie  the  President's  hands ;  it  had  gone  over  the 
verge  in  interfering  with  prerogatives  of  his,  hitherto 
unquestioned ;  it  was  ready  on  the  smallest  pretext  to 
impeach  him  and  remove  him  from  office.  As  an  illus- 
tration of  the  heated  condition  of  popular  opinion,  I 
remember  a  double-leaded  editorial  of  Theodore  Tilton's 
in  the  New  York  "Independent,"  in  which  it  was  seri- 
ously urged  that  whether  Johnson  had  violated  the  Con- 
stitution and  the  laws  or  not,  he  had  certainly  been 
guilty  of  disloyalty  to  the  Republican  Party,  and  that 
was  good  reason  why  a  Republican  Congress  should 
impeach  him.  The  technical  basis  on  which  the  im- 
peachment rested  was  weak ;  party  animosity  lent  it  all 
its  force.  It  is  humiliating  to  think  that  the  Senate 
came  within  one  vote  of  convicting  the  President,  on 
a  charge  which  few  Republican  partisans  at  this  day 
would  sustain ;  but  there  are  reasons  also  for  thankful- 


FOOLISHNESS  OF  RECONSTRUCTION    181 

ness.  "The  reflecting  citizen,"  says  Mr.  Rhodes,  "will 
like  to  recall  the  memory  that  the  high  state  trial,  taking 
place  in  the  midst  of  great  excitement,  was  conducted 
with  gravity  according  to  the  forms  of  law.  He  will 
recall,  too,  that  the  verdict,  which  ran  counter  to  an  ag- 
gressive majority  in  the  legislature  and  an  intense  popu- 
lar sentiment,  was  accepted  without  any  disturbance, 
indeed  with  entire  submission.  *Few  nations,'  wTote 
Bagehot,  'perhaps  scarcely  any  nation,  could  have 
borne  such  a  trial  so  easily  and  so  perfectly.'" * 

And  while  we  find  much  to  deplore  in  the  manner  in 
which  this  entire  business  of  reconstruction  was  man- 
aged, yet  we  must  not  fail  to  record  the  fact  that  there 
are  no  bloodstains  on  the  legislative  pages  which  tell  its 
story.  "The  common  sense  of  the  American  people," 
says  the  same  authority,  "saved  them  from  crowning 
blunders.  They  confiscated  (practically)  none  of  the 
land  of  their  prostrate  foe;  they  hanged  nobody  for  a 
political  crime.  These  are  grand  results,  furnishing  a 
new  chapter  in  the  world's  history.  Never  before,  on  the 
signal  failure  of  so  great  an  attempt  at  revolution,  had 
a  complete  victory  been  attended  with  no  proscriptions, 
no  confiscation  of  land,  no  putting  of  men  to  death. 
Another  Ireland  would  have  been  created  in  the  south- 
ern states,  had  not  our  people  been  endowed  in  large 
measure  with  humanity  and  good  sense.'" 

*  History  of  the  United  States,  vi,  155. 
»  Ibid.,  vi,  49. 


CHAPTER  XII 

FROM  STUDY  TO   SANCTUM 

Here  shall  the  Press  the  People's  right  maintain, 
Unawed  by  influence,  and  unbribed  by  gain; 
Here  patriot  Truth  her  glorious  precepts  draw, 
Pledged  to  ReUgion,  Liberty  and  Law. 

Joseph  Story. 

In  the  early  winter  of  1871  a  proposition  reached  me 
to  become  a  member  of  the  editorial  staff  of  the  New 
York  ''Independent."  Mr.  Theodore  Tilton  had  been, 
until  recently,  the  editor-in-chief  of  that  newspaper, 
and  his  editorial  policy  had  become  so  erratic  and  va- 
garious that  the  proprietor  of  the  paper,  Mr.  Henry 
C.  Bowen,  had  secured  his  resignation,  and  had  com- 
missioned Edward  Eggleston  to  act  as  superintend- 
ing editor,  with  William  Hayes  Ward  as  office  editor. 
Through  Eggleston  the  invitation  came  to  me.  The  first 
offer  was  that  of  the  literary  editorship,  lately  vacated 
by  Justin  McCarthy,  which  I  declined ;  it  seemed  rather 
aside  from  my  chief  aim.  Then  came  the  proposal  to 
take  the  desk  of  religious  editor,  —  to  have  under  my 
survey  the  entire  field  of  religious  thought  and  action. 
This  attracted  me.  Yet  I  did  not  find  it  easy  to  gain  my 
own  consent  to  turn  from  the  work  of  the  pastorate  into 
this  new  field.  There  were  misgivings  as  to  the  business 
side  of  the  enterprise  —  fears  lest  the  policy  of  the 
counting-room  might  embarrass  the  editorial  manage- 
ment.  On  all  these  matters,  however,  the  assurances 


FROM  STUDY  TO  SANCTUM  183 

were  positive:  the  editors  were  to  have  an  absolutely 
free  hand.  The  "Independent"  had  been  a  great  force 
in  the  nation;  Mr.  Tilton's  wild  notions  had  somewhat 
discredited  it,  but  the  determination  to  bring  it  back 
into  safe  ways  was  now  declared,  and  it  had  still  a  very 
large  constituency  of  intelUgent  readers.  On  the  whole, 
it  seemed  to  me  that  the  opportunity  offered  me  was 
far  larger  than  any  church  could  give  me;  and  I  took 
up  the  work  with  hope. 

Nevertheless,  it  cost  me  a  pang  to  separate  myself 
from  the  associations  and  companionships  of  my  Berk- 
shire home.  There  is  an  old  prophecy,  —  "the  moun- 
tains shall  bring  peace,"  —  the  meaning  of  which  I  had 
verified.  With  all  this  region  I  had  become  very  famil- 
iar. There  were  few  heights  to  which  I  had  not  climbed ; 
there  were  not  many  trout-brooks  whose  length  I  had 
not  measured ;  and  though  it  came  to  me  late,  something 
of  the  meaning  of  Nature  which  Wordsworth  unfolds  in 
"The  Prelude,"  had  been  taking  possession  of  me  during 
those  five  memorable  years.  Nor  had  I  ever  before  found 
so  many  loyal  friends,  or  so  many  reasons  for  believing 
that  my  labor  was  not  in  vain. 

It  was  in  the  early  spring  of  1871  that  we  turned  our 
faces  Babylon-ward,  finding  our  home  again  in  Brook- 
lyn. The  office  of  the  "  Independent "  was  in  Park  Place, 
New  York,  just  west  of  the  City  Hall  Park,  and  my  desk 
in  that  office  held  me  close  for  the  next  four  years.  But 
the  work  was  in  no  sense  drudgery ;  I  have  never  found 
anything  into  which  I  was  able  to  put  more  of  vital 
interest  and  enthusiasm.  It  was  my  business  to  know 
what  was  going  on  in  the  religious  world,  among  the 


184  RECOLLECTIONS 

churches;  what  was  being  said  in  the  books  and  maga- 
zines; and  to  interpret  and  guide,  as  best  I  could,  the 
movements  which  were  bringing  to  earth  the  kingdom 
of  heaven.  There  was  never  any  lack  of  subjects  to 
write  about ;  there  was  never  an  hour  when  any  number 
of  significant  things  were  not  taking  place.  And  I  am 
bound  to  say  that  I  did  not  shirk  my  job,  or  slight  my 
work.  I  have  a  file  of  the  "Independent"  for  the  four 
years  while  I  was  on  its  staff,  with  my  contributions 
marked,  and  the  testimony  is  abundant  that  so  far  as 
quantity  is  concerned,  I  did  my  full  share  of  the  edi- 
torial work. 

The  editorial  associates  with  whom  I  was  at  first  most 
closely  related  were  Edward  Eggleston  and  William 
Hayes  Ward.  Eggleston  was  a  versatile  and  breezy  fel- 
low, with  high  ideals  and  boundless  enthusiasm ;  he  was 
a  most  companionable  workmate,  and  it  was  with  much 
regret  that  I  heard  from  him,  only  a  few  months  after 
joining  the  staff,  that  he  had  accepted  the  editorship  of 
another  periodical.  This  left  Ward  the  managing  editor, 
and  for  the  remainder  of  the  four  years  the  laboring  oars 
were  in  his  hands  and  mine.  He  had  been  in  the  service 
three  or  four  years  before  I  entered  it,  and  he  is  still  in  it, 
— after  Alden,  I  should  think,  the  oldest  of  the  active  ed- 
itors of  the  metropolis,  —  unless  Richard  Watson  Gilder, 
of  the  "Century,"  maybe  his  senior.  Dr.  Ward  must 
have  seen  full  forty  years  of  continuous  editorial  service 
on  the  "Independent."  Intelhgent  and  capable  service 
it  has  been ;  for  light  and  leading  the  world's  debt  to  him 
is  much  larger  than  it  will  ever  know.  Dr,  Ward  is  by 
instinct  and  habit  a  scholar ;  with  greatly  impaired  eye- 


FROM  STUDY  TO  SANCTUM  185 

sight,  he  has  been  devoting  all  the  leisure  of  his  Ufe  to 
the  study  of  the  old  languages  of  Babylon  and  Assyria ; 
and  there  are  few  scholars  in  this  country  to  whom  the 
old  cylinders  and  their  inscriptions  are  more  familiar. 
Yet  his  interest  in  these  recondite  concerns  by  no  means 
obscures  his  judgment  in  practical  affairs,  or  dims  his 
interest  in  the  problems  of  the  present  time.  My  asso- 
ciation with  him  in  the  office  of  the  "Independent"  was 
always  cordial  and  harmonious.  If  we  did  not  always 
agree,  we  never  failed  to  come  to  a  good  understanding, 
with  entire  respect  for  each  other's  opinions.  I  have 
rarely  known  a  more  just-minded  man,  nor  one  on 
whose  practical  sense  I  could  more  confidently  rely. 

The  veteran  of  the  staff  was  Dr.  Joshua  Leavitt,  who 
had  been  connected  with  the  paper  from  the  begin- 
ning, and  was  now  performing  a  nominal  service,  which 
brought  him  into  the  office  for  a  part  of  every  day. 
Dr.  Leavitt  was  one  of  the  war-horses  of  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Reform.  When  Garrison's  war  upon  the  church 
became  bitter  and  relentless,  Leavitt  was  the  leader  of 
those  who  separated  from  the  Anti-Slavery  Society  and 
organized  a  society  with  which  the  churches  could  co- 
operate. The  organ  of  that  society,  of  which  Dr.  Leavitt 
became  the  editor,  was  "The  Emancipator."  Wlien  the 
"Independent"  was  projected,  he  was  called  to  be  its 
managing  editor.  He  was  a  man  of  great  dignity  and 
kindness,  —  a  magnificent  figure,  still  erect  in  body 
and  alert  in  mind,  —  with  a  deep  voice  and  a  fatherly 
demeanor.  It  was  interesting  to  talk  with  him  about 
the  controversies  of  the  early  years,  and  to  catch  the 
enthusiasm  which  still  glowed  in  his  young  heart.   I 


186  RECOLLECTIONS 

have  mentioned,  on  a  former  page,  the  prayer  of  thanks- 
giving with  which  he  greeted  the  [Emancipation  Procla- 
mation, eight  years  before. 

One  incident  connected  with  Dr.  Leavitt  brings  into 
clear  light  his  strong  personahty.  In  those  days  the 
*' Oneida  Community"  was  laying  considerable  claim  on 
the  public  attention.  It  assumed  to  be  a  religious  com- 
mune, but  its  views  of  the  relations  of  the  sexes  were 
astounding.  It  proposed  to  abolish  monogamy,  and  to 
substitute  for  it  a  shameless  promiscuity,  and  it  based 
this  cult  on  the  teachings  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  law  had 
not  yet  interfered  to  break  up  this  association,  and  the 
founder  of  it  had  recently  been  seeking  to  commend  his 
system  to  the  world  through  the  organ  of  the  commu- 
nity. It  was  about  this  time  that  he  came  one  day  to  the 
''Independent"  office,  and  presented  himself,  as  good 
fortune  would  have  it,  to  Dr.  Leavitt,  announcing  his 
name  and  his  address.  Dr.  Leavitt  declined  to  take  the 
proffered  hand,  but,  rising  slowly  to  his  feet  and  looking 
his  visitor  full  in  the  face,  said  in  a  voice  like  thunder : 
"Sir,  I  abhor  you !"  The  man  answered  not  a  word,  and 
paused  not  till  he  was  on  the  other  side  of  the  door. 
Nobody  else  said  anything.  It  did  not  appear  that  there 
was  anything  more  to  say. 

Another  associate  of  the  early  days  in  the  ''Inde- 
pendent" was  Mr.  Charles  F.  Briggs,  whose  pen  name 
was  "Harry  Franco,"  a  dear  friend  of  Lowell's,  and  the 
man  to  whom  "The  Fable  for  Critics"  was  addressed. 
Many  of  Lowell's  most  intimate  letters  were  written  to 
Briggs.  He  was  also  a  close  friend  of  William  Page,  the 
painter,  then  a  somewhat  prominent  figure  in  the  world 


FROM  STUDY  TO  SANCTUM  187 

of  art.  Briggs  was  a  genial  and  companionable  gentle- 
man. His  taste,  as  might  be  supposed,  was  somewhat 
severe,  and  he  was  disposed  to  hold  us  to  high  standards 
in  our  work,  but  he  was,  withal,  a  most  appreciative  and 
generous  critic,  and  his  praise  of  work  that  pleased  him 
was  ungrudging. 

The  political  editor  of  the  "Independent,"  during 
these  days,  was  the  Reverend  Samuel  T.  Spear,  D.  D., 
who  had  no  desk  in  the  office,  but  who  contributed  more 
or  less  matter  every  week  to  the  editorial  page.  Dr. 
Spear  had  impressed  himself  upon  Mr.  Bowen  as  a  man 
of  great  profundity ;  in  the  reaction  against  the  Tiltonian 
radicalism  he  probably  seemed  to  be  a  safe  resource. 
Yet  it  must  be  admitted  that  he  was  neither  an  inspired 
nor  an  inspiring  pohtical  leader ;  and  when  we  came  into 
the  heats  of  political  discussion,  the  narrowness  of  his 
partisanship  was  oftentimes  intolerable. 

Early  in  connection  with  the  "  Independent,"  the  Uter- 
ary  editorship  was  offered  to  a  young  man  who  had  just 
graduated  from  Dartmouth,  Mr.  Charles  F.  Richardson. 
It  was  a  large  place  for  a  mere  boy,  for  the  traditions  of 
the  "Independent"  called  for  capable  discussion  of  cur- 
rent literature.  But  our  faith  in  the  youth  was  justified. 
Without  venturing  beyond  his  depth,  Mr.  Richardson 
contrived  to  fill  the  literary  department  with  fresh  and 
entertaining  matter,  —  illustrating,  in  the  begininng  of 
his  career,  the  insight  and  discrimination  which  have 
made  him  an  authority  in  American  letters,  ^^^len  he 
first  came  into  our  office,  Mr.  Richardson  was  in  the  very 
freshness  of  youth.  His  college  course  had  raised  a  mul- 
titude of  questions  in  his  mind  and  had  settled  very 


188  RECOLLECTIONS 

few;  through  art  and  sociology  and  theology  his  mind 
was  ranging  free ;  it  would  have  been  hard  to  find  a  more 
ingenious  or  a  more  persistent  questioner.  It  is  many 
years  since  I  have  seen  him.  I  know  of  him  now,  through 
his  work,  as  a  man  whose  mind  is  pretty  well  made  up  on 
most  of  the  subjects  with  which  he  has  to  deal ;  but  I 
wonder  if  he  remembers  what  a  multitude  of  things  there 
were,  in  the  early  seventies,  about  which  he  wanted  to 
know.  It  was  a  perennial  refreshment  and  delight  to 
have  him  about  the  premises ;  at  any  moment  he  might 
come  bounding  in,  to  roost  on  the  arm  of  your  chair  and 
plump  at  you  some  question  about  the  supremacy  of  the 
Pope  or  the  doctrine  of  the  eucharist. 

When  Richardson  went  away,  his  place  was  taken  by 
my  college  classmate,  Dr.  Titus  Munson  Coan,  a  skillful 
and  accomplished  writer,  whose  practice  had  begun  with 
mine  in  the  pages  of  the  "Williams  Quarterly."  Dr. 
Coan's  work  as  critic  was  intelhgent  and  careful;  he 
has  since  made  for  himself  a  good  name  in  the  world 
of  letters. 

Besides  these  names  upon  the  regular  staff,  there  were 
several  who  regularly  contributed  to  different  editorial 
departments,  such  as  Science  and  Missions  and  Biblical 
Research,  And  there  was  a  multitude  of  writers,  male 
and  female,  with  whom  we  were  in  constant  corre- 
spondence, and  whose  faces  we  were  hkely  to  see,  from 
time  to  time,  in  the  office.  The  "Independent"  had 
always  made  much  of  its  list  of  contributors ;  it  found 
great  names  a  profitable  asset,  and  sought  to  add  as 
many  of  them  as  possible  to  the  roll  of  its  advertised 
writers.  Our  office  therefore  became  a  somewhat  popu- 


FROM  STUDY  TO  SANCTUM  189 

lar  resort  of  literary  people,  and  of  public  men  and 
women  who  were  then  more  or  less  conspicuous. 

One  of  our  frequent  callers  was  Schuyler  Colfax,  then 
Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  an  exceedingly 
affable  gentleman,  who  was  frequently  pleased  to  con- 
tribute to  the  "Independent,"  and  with  whom  it  was 
interesting  to  gossip  about  poUtics  at  Washington.  An- 
other was  Senator  Henry  Wilson,  of  Massachusetts,  who, 
a  little  later,  succeeded  to  the  Vice-Presidency.  Senator 
Wilson  was  then  engaged  in  writing  his  voluminous 
"History  of  the  Slave  Power  in  America,"  which  was 
appearing  serially  in  the  "Independent"  ;  this  made  his 
excuse  for  visits  to  the  office  whenever  he  came  to  the 
metropolis.  Nor  was  he  an  unwelcome  visitor.  Wilson 
was  not  a  brilliant  writer,  nor  a  man  of  culture,  but  he 
was  an  exceedingly  shrewd,  sagacious,  well-informed 
politician,  and  a  talk  of  an  hour  with  him  on  what  was 
going  on  at  Washington  would  give  a  clearer  idea  of 
political  conditions  than  it  was  possible  to  gain  in  any 
other  way. 

A  fresh  and  piquant  personaUty  who  often  enkindled 
our  spirits  by  his  presence  was  the  Reverend  Gilbert 
Haven,  afterward  Bishop  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  a  man  with  whom  it  was  delightful  to  disagree, 
and  who  had  the  happy  faculty  of  stating  with  perspi- 
cuity the  things  which  you  knew  you  did  not  wish  to 
believe.  To  few  men  do  I  owe  a  larger  debt  than  to  some 
who  have  put  clearly  before  my  mind  the  things  which  I 
knew  to  be  untrue.  It  would  be  unfair  to  "Gil"  Haven, 
as  we  then  familiarly  named  him,  to  leave  the  matter 
here.  I  suppose  that  I  agreed  with  him  in  ten  matters 


190  RECOLLECTIONS 

where  I  disagreed  in  one;  but  there  were  various  theo- 
logical questions  on  which  our  differences  were  sharp, 
and  his  delightfully  incisive  and  perfectly  good- 
natured  way  of  defining  those  differences  was  extremely 
serviceable. 

Another  frequent  visitor  of  a  somewhat  similar  men- 
tal habit  was  the  Reverend  Leonard  Woolsey  Bacon, 
who  assumed  the  role  of  "General  Suggester,"  and  was 
always  exercising  his  very  fertile  and  ingenious  mind 
upon  our  journahstic  problems.  We  were  indebted  to 
him  for  some  valuable  hints,  and  always  found  him  a 
helpful  counselor  as  well  as  a  welcome  contributor.  His 
nimble  wit  often  enlivened  our  toil.  When  Ward  came 
home  from  his  college  Commencement  with  the  honorary 
degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity,  Bacon's  greeting  was:  "I 
regret  to  hear  that  you  have  been  removed  from  the 
small  but  select  circle  of  untitled  men  into  the  indis- 
tinguishable herd  of  D.  D.'s." 

William  Lloyd  Garrison  was  also  an  occasional  con- 
tributor,  and  his  benignant  countenance  now  and  then 
looked  in  on  us.  It  was  interesting  to  note  the  atmos- 
phere of  quiet  content  by  which  he  was  always  sur- 
rounded ;  he  had  fought  the  good  fight  and  had  entered 
into  peace.  I  do  not  think  that  the  reconstruction  con- 
troversies troubled  him  greatly ;  not  so  much,  perhaps, 
as  they  might  reasonably  have  done.  His  faith  in  the 
efficacy  of  political  emancipation  was  so  strong,  that 
he  had  no  serious  fear  for  the  future  of  those  emanci- 
pated. The  last  time  I  saw  Mr.  Garrison  he  was  on  his 
way  home  from  a  meeting  of  the  Progressive  Friends  at 
Kenneth  Square,  Pennsylvania.  That  meeting  was  an 


FROM  STUDY  TO  SANCTUM  191 

assemblage  of  reformers  of  all  shades  and  stripes;  the 
platform  was  free  to  every  man  or  woman  with  a  hobby, 
and  Mr.  Garrison  was  telHng,  with  much  amusement, 
of  the  queer  people  who  had  been  ventilating  their  nos- 
trums. One  man,  he  said,  after  listening  to  the  mani- 
fold indictment  of  society  for  innumerable  great  and 
growing  evils,  startled  the  assembly  by  declaring  that 
nobody  had  yet  struck  at  the  root  of  the  social  malady ; 
that  all  the  ills  society  is  heir  to  were  due  to  one  cause ; 
one  word  with  four  letters  told  the  whole  story  — 
s-a-l-t.  The  use  of  salt  was  the  source  of  all  our  woes ; 
abstinence  from  that  would  restore  the  lost  paradise. 
Mr.  Garrison  had  reached  a  point  at  which  the  queer- 
ness  of  reformers  was  diverting  to  him.* 

Bret  Harte  was  Uving  in  New  York  then,  and  I 
remember  a  call  from  him;  Joaquin  Miller  visited  us 
often,  and  Stedman  and  Stoddard  now  and  then  dropped 
in.  Among  the  women  writers,  Mary  Clemmer  Ames, 
"Gail  Hamilton"  (Mary  Abigail  Dodge),  "Susan 
CooUdge"  (Sarah  C.  Woolsey),  and  Helen  Hunt  were 
occasional  callers. 

One's  experience  in  meeting  thus,  in  the  flesh,  large 
numbers  of  men  and  women  whom  he  has  hitherto 
known  only  through  the  printed  page,  is  sometimes 
gratifying  and  sometimes  not.  There  are  those  whose 
words  always  mean  more  to  you  after  you  have  known 
them ;  and  others  whom  you  cordially  wish  that  you  had 
never  seen.  On  the  whole,  however,  I  treasure,  as  a  good 

•  Mr.  Garrison's  son,  who  has  read  these  proofs,  admonishes  me 
that  this  sense  of  humor  was  not  a  late  acquisition  of  his  father's; 
that  he  was  always  able  to  see  the  ludicrous  side  of  things. 


192  RECOLLECTIONS 

part  of  my  education,  the  extended  acquaintance  with 
the  men  and  women  of  letters  which  I  enjoyed  in  the 
office  of  the  ''Independent." 

In  1871  the  ''Independent"  was  a  blanket  sheet  of 
huge  dimensions,  with  a  page  twenty-eight  inches  long 
by  twenty-two  in  width;  its  regular  issue  contained 
eight  pages,  with  nine  long  columns  on  a  page ;  the  first 
number  of  every  month  added  four  pages,  and  was 
somewhat  crudely  illustrated.  It  was  a  formidable  sheet 
to  handle,  and  there  was  a  sense  of  relief  to  editors  as 
well  as  readers  when,  at  the  end  of  1872,  the  form  was 
changed  to  that  of  a  quarto,  with  thirty-two  pages  about 
half  as  long  as  the  old  ones,  and  four  columns  instead  of 
nine  to  the  page.  We  got  rid  of  our  pictures  also,  which 
was  a  deliverance.  It  was  before  the  days  of  photo- 
graphic half-tones,  and  such  wood-engravings  as  we 
could  command  were  far  from  being  an  unalloyed  de- 
hght  to  all  the  members  of  the  staff. 

In  national  poUtics  nothing  inspiring  was  coming  to 
light.  The  sordid  and  unsocial  tempers  bred  by  the  war 
were  bringing  forth  their  corrupt  fruitage.  Grant  was 
in  the  middle  of  his  first  term,  and  was  beginning  to 
exhibit  the  incapacity  for  civil  leadership  which  might 
naturally  have  been  expected  of  him.  The  reconstruc- 
tion measures  were  working  out  their  dubious  results; 
much  was  made  of  "southern  outrages,"  but  it  had 
become  e\'ident  to  many  northern  men  that  these  were 
largely  fictitious,  invented  or  magnified  to  draw  atten- 
tion from  the  abuses  with  which  the  national  adminis- 
tration was  reeking,  and  to  stifle  the  cry  for  reform 


FROM  STUDY  TO  SANCTUM  193 

of  the  Civil  Service.  Mr,  Rhodes  is  certainly  justified  in 
his  statement  that  "the  Congressional  leaders,  who  so 
powerfully  influenced  Grant,  and  who  obviously  rated 
the  apparent  and  transitory  interest  in  their  party 
higher  than  the  welfare  of  the  country,  found  it  easier 
to  carry  elections  at  the  North  by  harping  upon  the 
'rebelhon,'  and  'rebels,'  than  to  undertake  the  real  work 
of  reform.  The  failures  and  scandals  of  Grant's  two 
administrations  were  largely  due  to  the  easy  pardon 
obtained,  in  accordance  with  RepubUcan  ethics,  for  any 
sort  of  rascality  committed  by  one  who  was  'sound  on 
the  main  question,'  which  meant  being  pledged  to  uni- 
versal negro  suffrage  and  the  continued  subjection  of 
the  southern  states.  .  .  .  Patriotism  in  the  ranks  of 
the  dominant  party  was  now  become  almost  synony- 
mous with  traducement  and  abuse  of  the  South."  ^ 

It  was  a  dark  period  in  the  life  of  the  nation  —  such 
an  era  as  might  logically  have  been  expected  to  follow 
a  demoralizing  war.  The  dubious  financial  policy  which 
the  nation  had  followed  through  the  war  had  tended  to 
unsettle  the  common  notions  of  commercial  moraUty; 
the  irregularities  in  army  and  na\y  contracts,  out  of 
which  great  fortunes  had  been  made,  had  helped  to 
lower  the  tone  of  public  opinion,  and  the  worship  of 
Mammon  had  begun  to  assume  that  ascendency  over  the 
mind  of  the  nation  which  was  destined  to  become  so 
portentous  in  after  years. 

Nor  was  there,  it  must  be  confessed,  much  to  counter- 
act these  evil  influences  in  the  administration  of  Presi- 
dent Grant.   That  he  was  ever  guilty  of  palpable  dis- 

»  History  of  the  United  States,  vi,  391. 


194  RECOLLECTIONS 

honesty,  few  people  believed;  but  he  was  singularly 
lacking  in  those  delicacies  of  feeling  by  which  men  are 
preserved  from  offending  against  the  larger  proprieties 
of  official  station ;  his  admiration  for  rich  men  was  a 
s}Tnptom  of  weakness ;  he  used  his  prerogative  unblush- 
ingly  in  behalf  of  his  relatives;  and  he  not  only  per- 
mitted the  members  of  his  official  family  to  accept 
presents  freely,  but  he  himself  received  them  with  no 
apparent  sense  of  indecency.  All  this  must  be  charged 
against  his  inexperience ;  he  had  had  no  training  what- 
ever in  civil  affairs ;  it  was  a  cruel  thing  to  thrust  upon 
him  these  great  responsibilities.  His  associates  were 
largely  men  of  doubtful  record,  from  whom  he  could  get 
neither  guidance  nor  inspiration.  Americans  returning 
from  Europe  brought  back  tales  of  illiterate  and  un- 
couth characters  traveUng  with  letters  of  introduction 
from  the  President  of  the  United  States  and  conveying 
unhappy  impressions  of  social  conditions  at  the  Ameri- 
can capital. 

It  was  true,  however,  that  General  Grant  had  called 
into  his  Cabinet  three  or  four  men  of  high  character. 
Hamilton  Fish,  his  Secretary  of  State,  Jacob  D.  Cox, 
his  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  and  Ebenezer  Rockwood 
Hoar,  his  Attorney-General,  were  men  of  the  finest 
quality,  and  the  most  hopeful  feature  of  the  administra- 
tion had  been  the  loyalty  of  these  men  to  the  President 
and  his  apparent  confidence  in  them.  With  what  con- 
sternation, therefore,  had  the  public  witnessed  the  dis- 
missal from  the  President's  official  family,  first  of  Hoar, 
and  then  of  Cox.  The  explanations  given  of  the  removal 
of  these  two  upright  and  faithful  men  reflected  no  credit 


FROM  STUDY  TO  SANCTUM  195 

on  the  administration;  it  was  quite  too  evident  that 
influences  of  a  pernicious  character  were  gaining  the 
ascendency  at  Washington. 

These  Cabinet  changes  had  been  made  in  the  summer 
and  autumn  of  1870,  and  the  disaffection  of  the  country 
had  shown  itself  at  the  fall  elections  in  a  decided  reduc- 
tion of  the  Republican  majority  in  both  houses  of  Con- 
gress. Another  monitory  symptom  was  the  rising  de- 
mand for  a  reform  in  the  Civil  Service.  In  January  of 
this  year,  1871,  an  article  by  General  Cox  had  appeared 
in  the  "North  American  Review,"  in  which  the  scandals 
of  the  spoils  system  were  abundantly  and  strongly  set 
forth.  The  people  believed  that  General  Cox  knew 
whereof  he  spoke,  and  they  were  inclined  to  listen  to 
what  he  had  to  say.  When  he  testified  that  "  by  far  the 
larger  part  of  the  time  of  the  President  and  all  the 
members  of  his  Cabinet  was  occupied  in  dealing  out  the 
offices";  and  when  he  said  that  " diplomacy,  finance, 
military,  naval,  and  internal  administration  are  the 
minor  affairs,  which  the  settled  policy  of  the  country 
has  relegated  to  such  odds  and  ends  of  time  as  may 
be  snatched  from  the  greater  cares  of  office,"  the  coun- 
try seemed  to  be  listening  to  an  authoritative  word, 
which  ought  to  require  prompt  attention  and  immedi- 
ate action. 

It  was  during  the  first  months  of  my  work  upon  the 
"Independent"  that  the  demand  for  civil  service 
reform  began  to  make  itself  audible.  General  Grant, 
to  do  him  justice,  had  already,  in  his  last  message, 
declared  that  such  a  reform  was  needed.  Probably  his 
convictions  on  the  subject  were  sound;  but  the  evil 


196  RECOLLECTIONS 

geniuses  who  were  shaping  his  policy  had  less  use  for 
a  purified  service  than  the  devil  has  for  holy  water. 
Nevertheless,  a  provision  was  smuggled  into  a  sundry 
ci\dl  expense  bill,  approved  ]\Iarch  3,  1871,  which  au- 
thorized the  President  to  "prescribe  such  rules  and 
regulations  for  the  admissions  of  persons  into  the  civil 
service  of  the  United  States  as  vn.\\  best  promote  the 
efficiency  thereof";  and  empowering  him  to  appoint 
a  commission  for  the  preparation  of  such  regulations. 
President  Grant  showed  his  good  faith  by  making 
George  William  Curtis  the  chairman  of  the  Commission. 
Thus  was  launched  the  movement  which  was  destined, 
in  later  years,  to  have  large  consequences.  It  was  a 
matter  that  interested  us  keenly  at  the  time ;  but  our 
expectations  of  immediate  results  were  not  large.  The 
appointment  of  the  Commission  was  a  sop  to  Cerberus ; 
Mr.  Curtis  and  his  associates  might  formulate  their 
plans,  but  ways  would  be  found  of  making  them  of  none 
effect.  The  pohticians  in  power  were  of  the  same  school 
as  Ensign  Stebbins,  of  Maine,  who  was  "in  favor  of  the 
prohibitory  law,  but  agin  its  enforcement."  Neverthe- 
less, it  was  something  to  extort  from  the  army  of  spoils- 
men this  hypocritical  concession. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  TWEED  RING 

Only  three  instances  I  choose  from  all, 
And  each  enough  to  stir  a  pigeon's  gall: 
OfBce  a  fund  for  ballot-brokers  made 
To  pay  the  drudges  of  their  gainful  trade ; 
Our  cities  taught  what  conquered  cities  feel 
By  ajdiles  chosen  that  they  might  safely  steal; 
And  gold,  however  got,  a  title  fair 
To  such  respect  as  only  gold  can  bear. 

James  Russell  Lowell . 

If  the  field  of  national  politics  was  comparatively 
barren  of  incident  in  the  first  months  of  1871,  local  poli- 
tics were  rapidly  coming  to  a  boil.  The  Tweed  ring  was 
now  at  the  height  of  its  power,  and  the  storm  was 
gathering  which  was  destined  to  sweep  it  out  of  exist- 
ence. It  was  my  good  fortune  to  arrive  upon  the  scene 
in  the  months  when  this  tremendous  struggle  was  be- 
ginning. It  would  be  difficult  for  the  people  of  any 
American  city  at  this  day  to  conceive  of  the  conditions 
which  prevailed  in  New  York  in  the  spring  of  1871. 
We  have  had  a  good  deal  of  rotten  municipal  govern- 
ment in  this  country  in  the  past  ten  years,  but  nothing 
comparable  to  the  despotic  brigandage  of  the  Tweed 
regime.  The  Big  Four  of  that  combine,  William  Marcy 
Tweed,  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Supervisors, 
Peter  B.  Sweeney,  the  Treasurer  of  the  City,  Richard  B. 
Connolly,  the  Controller,  and  A.  Oakey  Hall,  the  Mayor, 
were  despots,  with  power  as  absolute  as  any  Babylonian 


198  RECOLLECTIONS 

satrap  ever  exercised.    Through  their  control  of  the 
legislature  of  the  state  they  had  got  the  functions  of  the 
city  government  so  parceled  out  among  themselves  that 
their  control  of  its  functions  was  complete,  and  they 
were  proceeding  without  let  or  hindrance  to  rob  the  tax- 
payers of  milUons  for  their  own  enrichment.  That  such 
stupendous  stealing  was  in  progress  was  openly  charged, 
and  the  persistent  and  cumulative  attacks  of  the  New 
York  "Times"  had  given  the  people  abundant  rea- 
son to  believe  it.    Nevertheless,  the  popular  apathy 
was  amazing.  There  were  thousands  of  intelligent  and 
respectable  people  who  professed  their  belief  that  all 
was  sweet  and  sound  at  the  City  Hall.  There  were  tens 
of  thousands  more  who  knew  better,  but  who  were 
inclined  to  plead  that  nothing  could  be  done  about  it, 
that  the  ring  was  so  strongly  intrenched  that  it  was 
practically  invincible.  Just  before  the  last  election,  in 
November,  1870,  the  gang  had  persuaded  six  of  the  rich 
men  of  New  York  —  John  Jacob  Astor,  Marshall  0. 
Roberts,  and  Moses  Taylor,  among  them  —  to  look 
over  the  books  in  the  controller's  office,  and  to  issue 
this  certificate:  "We  have  come  to  the  conclusion  and 
certify  that  the  financial  affairs  of  the  city  under  the 
charge  of  the  controller,  are  administered  in  a  correct 
and  faithful  manner"!    At  that  very  moment  those 
books,  if  thoroughly  examined,  would  have  shown  the 
robbery  of  tens  of  millions  of  dollars.   One  ought  not,  I 
suppose,  too  curiously  to  inquire  how  it  was  that  these 
six  rich  men  were  so  easily  convinced  of  the  honesty  of 
these  colossal  robbers. 
.    On  the  week  that  I  entered  the  "  Independent"  office, 


THE  TWEED  RING  199 

Tweed  had  before  the  legislature  bills  confirming  the 
hold  of  the  gang  upon  the  finances  of  the  city.  The  bare- 
faced shamelessness  of  these  schemes  should  have  been 
apparent  to  everybody,  and  a  feeble  attempt  was  made 
to  express  the  disapproval  of  the  citizens.  A  mass 
meeting  was  called  at  Cooper  Institute,  at  which  Wil- 
liam E.  Dodge,  William  F.  Havemeyer,  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  and  William  M.  Evarts  sought  to  rouse  the  citi- 
zens to  resist  the  passage  of  Tweed's  bills.  But  the 
effect  was  practically  nil.  The  bills  were  passed  without 
a  grimace,  and  Tweed's  defiant  query  was:  "  What  are 
you  going  to  do  about  it?" 

There  are  a  great  many  millions  of  American  citizens 
who  can  sit  still  and  look  on  while  things  of  this  kind 
are  going  on  before  their  eyes;  whose  digestion  is  not 
impaired  nor  their  temper  ruffled  by  the  most  flagrant 
violation  of  public  trusts;  who  are  so  intent  upon 
private  gain  that  they  find  no  room  in  their  lives  for 
any  concern  about  the  commonwealth.  They  are  repre- 
sented by  that  New  York  citizen  who  told  President 
Andrew  D.  White,  in  these  very  days,  that  he  did  not 
distress  himself  about  politics,  because  he  could  make 
more  money  in  the  time  that  he  should  be  required  to 
give  to  public  affairs  than  the  thieves  could  steal  from 
him  in  the  same  time.  There  are  a  great  many  millions, 
I  fear,  to  whom  that  would  appear  to  be  an  entirely  rea- 
sonable exposition  of  the  obligations  of  citizenship.  The 
existence  of  these  millions  is  the  explanation  and  justi- 
fication of  Tweed  rings  and  all  such  cancerous  growths 
upon  the  body  politic.  For  such  citizens  as  these  the 
Tweed  ring  is  the  right  kind  of  government.  If  only  the 


200  RECOLLECTIONS 

robberies  of  the  rings  could  be  confined  to  citizens  of  this 
class,  all  would  be  as  it  should  be. 

Not  having  been  sufficiently  disciplined  in  this  school 
of  indifference,  I  confess  that  the  first  months  of  my 
sojourn  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  City  Hall  and  the 
County  Court  House  were  not  a  period  of  entire  placid- 
ity. It  seemed  intolerable  to  hve  in  the  presence  of  such 
enormities;  and  yet  there  appeared  to  be  httle  that 
could  be  done.  The  New  York  "Times"  and  "Harper's 
Weekly  "  were  keeping  up  their  bombardment  of  the 
ring ;  and  there  are  few  things  in  American  history  bet- 
ter worth  remembering  than  the  bulldog  pertinacity 
of  that  warfare.  To  four  men,  Jones  and  Jennings  of 
the  "Times,"  Fletcher  Harper  and  Thomas  Nast  of  the 
"Weekly,"  the  nation  owes  much  for  the  unrelenting 
purpose  with  which  they  pursued  these  scoundrels. 
They  did  not  wait  to  strike  till  the  iron  should  be  hot, 
they  heated  it  by  striking.  It  was  their  persistence 
which  finally  emboldened  some  of  the  minor  officials  of 
the  ring  to  bring  them  the  facts  by  which  they  were 
enabled  to  substantiate  their  charges,  and  to  arouse  this 
stupefied  community  to  some  sense  of  the  iniquities 
with  which  it  was  infested. 

It  was  a  dramatic  moment  when  "Jimmy"  O'Brien, 
who  had  gained  some  standing  with  the  ring  and  access 
to  Connolly's  books,  and  then  had  quarreled  with  the 
gang,  walked  into  the  office  of  the  editor  of  the  "Times" 
and  threw  down  upon  the  desk  transcripts  of  the  city 
accounts  which  more  than  justified  all  the  charges  that 
the  newspaper  had  been  making.  The  fact  that  the 
"Times"  had  the  evidence  was  soon  known,  and  the 


THE  TWEED  RING  201 

desperation  of  the  gang  was  not  concealed.  They  had 
already  offered  Jones  one  million  dollars  if  he  would 
desist  from  his  attacks ;  having  failed  in  that,  they  sup- 
posed that  the  only  thing  needful  was  to  raise  the  price. 
Mr.  Rhodes  tells  the  story :  — 

A  lawyer,  a  tenant  in  the  "Times"  building,  sent 
Jones  word  that  he  wished  to  see  him  on  an  important 
matter  in  his  own  office.  Repairing  thither  and  being 
ushered  into  a  private  room,  Jones  was  confronted  by 
Connolly.  Jones  turned  to  go,  saying,  "I  don't  want 
to  see  this  man."  "For  God's  sake,"  exclaimed  Con- 
nolly, "  let  me  say  one  word  to  you,"  and  he  then  offered 
Jones  five  million  dollars  to  forego  the  publication  of 
the  accounts.  "  I  don't  think,"  said  Jones,  "  that  the  devil 
will  ever  make  a  higher  bid  for  mc  than  that."  Connolly 
pleaded,  argued,  and  pictured  the  delights  of  rest,  travel, 
and  luxurious  living.  "Why,  with  that  sum,"  he  de- 
clared, "you  can  go  to  Europe  and  live  like  a  prince.'! 
"  Yes,"  answered  Jones,  "  but  I  should  know  that  I  was  a 
rascal.  I  cannot  consider  your  offer  or  any  offer  not  to 
publish  the  facts  in  my  possession.''  ^ 

We  are  ha\ing,  in  these  days,  specious  apologies  for 
public  men  who  yield  to  great  temptation.  It  seems  to 
be  assumed  that  if  the  bribe  is  only  big  enough,  and 
the  pressure  strong  enough,  almost  any  act  of  perfidy 
to  pubhc  interests  must  be  condoned.  "They  could  n't 
help  it ;  they  had  to  do  it,"  is  the  plea  by  which  grafters 
of  all  stripes  are  sometimes  justified.  But  the  compul- 
sion, in  all  these  cases,  is  nothing  other  than  the  love  of 
money.  They  had  to  do  it  because  they  could  not  resist 

*  History  of  the  United  Stales,  vi,  405. 


202  RECOLLECTIONS 

the  temptation  to  get  rich  quick.  That  is  all  it  means. 
It  is  to  be  feared  that  there  are,  indeed,  multitudes  who 
cannot  conceive  of  any  worthier  or  stronger  motive. 
But  this  little  story  of  George  Jones  introduces  us  to  a 
higher  realm  of  human  conduct.  '*I  should  know  that  I 
was  a  rascal "  is  after  all  the  testimony  of  the  normal 
human  consciousness.  The  thing  that  this  man  "had  to 
do"  was  to  keep  his  conscience  free  from  that  guilty 
knowledge. 

It  was  on  July  8,  1871,  that  the  New  York  "Times" 
began  the  publication  of  these  figures,  giving,  in  facsim- 
ile, records  of  many  of  the  more  important  transactions. 
What  a  revelation  it  was !  It  came  like  a  thunderstorm 
in  a  sultry  night.  Destruction  was  in  its  path,  but  it 
cleared  the  air ;  and  every  lightning  flash  revealed  a  foe 
in  ambush.  Then  Nast's  tremendous  cartoons  came  in 
to  make  the  exposure  vivid  and  convincing.  Perhaps  no 
speech  from  the  rostrum  or  editorial  in  the  newspaper 
ever  had  a  more  powerful  effect  in  enlightening  and  in- 
flaming public  opinion  than  Nast's  cartoon,  "Who  Stole 
the  People's  Money?"  The  members  of  the  gang  and 
their  tools  are  standing  in  a  ring,  and  each  is  pointing 
with  his  thumb  to  the  one  who  stands  next  him,  and 
saying,  "  'T  was  him."  No  wonder  Tweed  was  frantic  to 
silence  this  accuser.  "Let 's  stop  these  pictures,"  he  cried. 
"  I  don't  care  so  much  what  the  papers  write  about  me 
—  my  constituents  can't  read;  but  they  can  see  pic- 
tures." Half  a  million  dollars  Mr.  Nast  might  have  had, 
if  he  would  have  taken  a  trip  to  Europe ;  but  he,  like 
George  Jones,  was  not  under  the  compulsion  of  cupidity ; 
there  was  something  else  to  live  for  besides  money. 


THE  TWEED  RING  203 

It  was  refreshing  to  -fitness  the  confusion  and  con- 
sternation into  which  the  gang  was  at  once  thrown 
by  these  exposures.  They  tried  to  reply  through  the 
newspapers,  but  the  best  they  could  say  was  so  mis- 
erably inadequate  that  the  pubUc  only  laughed.  Out  of 
their  own  mouths  they  condemned  themselves.  Then 
they  caught  at  the  poUcy  of  silence.  "Keep  still  a  few 
weeks,"  they  said,  "and  it  will  all  blow  over."  Their 
faith  in  the  indifference  and  irresponsibility  of  the  aver- 
age American  was  unlimited,  ^\^lo  shall  say  that  it  was 
not  too  well  founded  ?  But  in  this  case  they  were  at  a 
loss  in  their  reckoning.  The  storm  showed  no  signs  of 
abating.  Every  day  the  gale  was  higher  and  the  lightning 
was  more  incessant.  The  facts  which  were  daily  coming 
to  light  sufficed  to  prevent  the  subsidence  of  the  popu- 
lar indignation.  It  began  to  be  evident  that  a  scheme 
of  raising  the  accounts  of  all  who  had  any  transactions 
with  the  city  had  been  for  some  years  in  operation,  by 
which  untold  millions  of  money  had  passed  into  the 
hands  of  the  ring.  A  man  presenting  to  the  city  a  bill  of 
ten  thousand  dollars  for  work  or  supplies  was  told  that 
that  bill  could  not  be  paid,  at  present;  but  that  if  he 
could  make  it  a  hundred  thousand,  it  would  be  attended 
to  at  once.  Raising  his  bill  to  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars,  and  indorsing  it  over  to  Ingersoll,  who  was  the 
stalking-horse  of  the  gang,  he  received  his  ten  thousand, 
and  the  other  ninety  thousand  was  drawn  from  the 
treasury  and  divided  among  the  confederates.  Tweed 
had  twenty-four  per  cent,  the  others  a  fixed  share. 
There  was  a  Board  of  Special  Audit  which  passed  on  all 
city  and  county  claims ;  the  members  of  the  Board  were 


204  RECOLLECTIONS 

Hall,  Connolly,  and  Tweed.  The  investigation  showed 
that  at  one  sitting  this  board  had  allowed  claims  for 
six  million  dollars,  out  of  which  the  city  got  only  six 
hmidred  thousand  dollars.  That  County  Court  House 
which  had  been  going  up  across  the  way,  and  whose 
marble  fagade  invited  our  daily  admiration,  had  cost 
the  city  already  eleven  million  dollars,  but  the  amount 
received  by  the  builders  had  been  only  three  million 
dollars.  Such  were  instances  of  the  kind  of  operation 
which  had  been  going  on  for  several  years  in  the  city 
and  county  of  New  York.  What  the  total  amount  of 
these  robberies  may  have  been  will  never  be  known. 
A  "joint  committee,"  which  went  over  the  accounts, 
declared  that  the  stealings  for  the  past  two  years  had 
been  ten  times  as  great  as  the  actual  expenses  of  the 
city.  The  amount  of  plunder  captured  by  this  gang 
has  been  variously  estimated  at  from  forty-five  million 
dollars  to  two  hundred  miUion  dollars.  The  lowest  esti- 
mate is  sufficiently  astounding.  It  is  evident  from  the 
amounts  of  hush  money  that  they  were  ready  to  pay 
that  their  resources  were  princely. 

It  was  on  the  eighth  of  July  that  the  "Times"  began 
to  turn  over  the  leaves  of  the  book  of  doom,  and  by  the 
end  of  the  month  the  exposure  had  been  so  complete 
that  no  vestige  of  doubt  was  left  in  anybody's  mind  as 
to  the  guUt  of  the  confederates.  The  only  question  was 
what  steps  should  be  taken  to  bring  them  to  justice. 
On  the  first  of  August  Dr.  Ward  went  away  for  a 
month's  vacation,  leaving  me  in  charge  of  the  edito- 
rial pages.  That  seemed  to  be  my  opportunity,  and  the 
"Independent,"  for  the  next  four  weeks,  trained  all  its 


THE  TWEED  RING  205 

guns  on  this  citadel  of  corruption,  seeking  to  guide 
public  opinion  toward  an  adequate  handling  of  the  busi- 
ness before  the  city.  I  am  sure  that  the  testimony  was 
not  lacking  in  point  and  conviction.  The  quotations 
from  our  editorials  made  every  week  by  the  daily  news- 
papers seemed  to  indicate  their  sense  of  its  seriousness. 
It  was  one  of  the  times  of  my  life  when  I  have  come 
across  something  that  needed  to  be  hit  and  have  had 
a  chance  to  strike  hard.  Such  opportunities  make  hfe 
worth  living. 

I  have  found,  in  some  of  these  old  editorials,  a  breath 
of  the  gale  that  was  blowing,  just  then,  through  the 
streets  of  Gotham :  — 

The  gates  of  the  Tombs  have  never  opened  to  receive 
criminals  of  deeper  dye  than  the  men  who  compose  the 
New  York  Ring.  For  it  is  not  only  against  property,  but 
against  Ufe  and  public  virtue  as  well,  that  they  have  con- 
spired. They  pocket  the  money  that  ought  to  pay  for 
cleansing  the  streets,  and  thus  join  hands  with  fever 
and  pestilence  to  slaughter  the  innocent.  They  keep  for 
their  servitors  the  assassins  of  the  purlieus,  and  murder 
and  rapine  own  their  fostering  care.  They  make  com- 
mon cause  with  rumshops  and  brothels,  and  virtue  and 
order  cry  out  against  their  rule.  If  there  are  any  crim- 
inals in  the  land  to-day,  these  men  are  criminals.  If  it 
is  worth  while  to  punish  any  evil-doers  whatsoever,  it  is 
worth  while  to  punish  them. 

These  men  were  still  in  power,  and  Tweed  was  defi- 
antly demanding:  "  What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it?" 
The  next  week  an  explicit  answer  to  that  question  was 
ventured :  — 


206  RECOLLECTIONS 

We  are  going  to  turn  you  and  all  your  creatures  out  of 
your  offices.  That  we  can  do  and  shall  do,  please  God, 
before  the  new  year  is  a  week  old. 

We  are  going  to  get  back  as  much  as  we  can  of  the 
booty  you  have  stolen.  We  know  the  job  will  not  be  an 
easy  one,  but  you  may  depend  on  us  not  to  give  it  up 
without  a  fair  trial. 

We  are  going  to  use  our  best  endeavors  to  send  you 
to  your  own  place,  the  penitentiary. 

At  any  rate,  we  are  going  to  make  the  city  and  the  whole 
country  too  hot  for  you.  There  is  some  conscience  in  the 
land  yet,  and  you  will  find  it  out  before  you  die.  Upon 
you  shall  rest,  heavy  and  immovable,  the  weight  of  a 
nation's  curse.  You  have  perverted  our  laws.  You  have 
corrupted  our  young  men.  You  have  done  what  in  you 
lay  to  destroy  our  Government.  There  are  some  sins  that 
a  nation  may  never  forgive,  and  yours  is  among  them. 
It  is  our  solemn  charge  to  hold  you  up  while  you  live 
to  the  scorn  and  contempt  of  mankind.  God  may  have 
mercy  on  you ;  but  as  for  us,  we  promise  you  that  your 
ill-gotten  booty  shall  be  but  a  poor  compensation  for 
the  inheritance  of  shame  which  shall  be  yours  forever. 

That  these  hot  words  quite  outran  the  hopes  of  most 
of  those  who  were  prosecuting  the  robbers  is  quite 
probable ;  but  within  three  months  they  were  substan- 
tially verified.  It  is  often  well  to  assume  that  what 
ought  to  be  will  be. 

By  the  first  of  September  the  people  of  New  York 
were  ready  to  take  up  the  matter  in  hand.  A  great  mass 
meeting,  which  crowded  Cooper  Institute  and  over- 
flowed into  the  street,  registered  the  determination  of 
the  people  to  put  an  end  to  this  monstrosity.  A  commit- 
tee of  seventy  was  appointed  to  take  the  necessary  legal 


THE  TWEED  RING  207 

measures.  And  now  these  conspirators,  with  the  chiv- 
alry of  rats,  began  to  plot  against  one  another.  Con- 
nolly was  chosen  the  scapegoat  of  the  other  three,  but 
he  declined  to  be  a  "vicarious  sacrifice,"  and  the  inqui- 
sition went  on.  Then  Samuel  J.  Tilden  and  Charles 
O'Conor  were  called  in;  Connolly  was  induced  to  ap- 
point as  deputy  controller  Andrew  H.  Green,  a  man  of 
high  character ;  Tweed  was  arrested  and  held  to  bail  in 
the  sum  of  one  million  dollars;  and  Sweeney  and  Con- 
nolly both  resigned  their  offices,  making  good,  how- 
ever, their  escape  to  Europe,  with  booty  enough  to  keep 
them  in  luxury  for  the  rest  of  their  lives.  How  Tweed 
was  indicted,  released  on  bail,  con\'icted,  imprisoned,  re- 
leased, and  rearrested  again  and  again,  twice  escaping 
from  the  country,  and  being  brought  back  to  end  his  life 
in  1878  in  the  Ludlow  Street  jail,  is  a  story  that  I  do  not 
need  to  repeat.  Suffice  it  to  say  that,  before  the  end  of 
1871,  the  ring  which  at  the  beginning  of  the  year  was 
at  the  summit  of  its  power,  levying  millions  of  tribute 
upon  the  tax-payers  of  New  York,  had  been  driven 
from  office  and  scattered ;  one  was  under  indictment  as 
a  felon,  and  two  were  in  exile. 

There  were  lessons  in  this  overturning  for  all  who 
were  ready  to  learn.  It  presented  a  fearful  example  of 
the  criminal  neglect  of  duty  of  which  the  citizens  of  a 
municipahty  can  be  guilty,  and  of  the  extent  to  which 
they  can  be  robbed  and  victimized,  without  resistance. 
It  is  a  mere  truism  to  say  that  people  who  live  for  any 
length  of  time  under  such  a  despotism  as  the  Tweed 
ring  prove,  by  that  fact,  that  they  are  not  fit  for  self- 
government.   If  they  cannot  find  out  what  their  ser- 


208  RECOLLECTIONS 

vants  in  office  are  doing,  they  are  too  stupid  to  govern 
themselves;  if  they  know  about  it  but  cannot  stop  it, 
they  are  too  weak  to  govern  themselves.  The  episode 
shows,  however,  how  easy  it  is  for  an  aroused  and 
resolute  community  to  put  an  end  to  municipal  misrule. 
No  other  combination  of  selfish  politicians  in  this  coun- 
try was  ever  so  strongly  intrenched  as  was  the  Tweed 
ring ;  they  had  the  legislature  of  the  state  under  abso- 
lute control;  the  judiciary  of  New  York  city  were  their 
tools;  they  had  their  plans  laid  to  dictate  the  next 
nomination  to  the  presidency  of  the  United  States ;  and 
yet,  when  the  people  of  the  city  awoke  and  gave  united 
thought  to  these  iniquities,  in  a  breath  they  shriveled 
and  disappeared. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  GREELEY  CAMPAIGN  AND  THE  CREDIT  MOBILIER 

Was  I  too  bitter?  Who  his  phrase  can  choose 

That  sees  the  life-blood  of  his  dearest  ooze? 

I  loved  my  Country  so  as  only  they 

Who  love  a  mother  fit  to  die  for  may ; 

I  loved  her  old  renown,  her  stainless  fame,  — 

What  better  proof  than  that  I  loathed  her  shame? 

This  I  know 
That  man  or  race  so  prosperously  low 
Sunk  in  success  that  wrath  they  cannot  feel, 
Shall  taste  the  spurn  of  parting  Fortune's  heel ; 
For  never  land  long  lease  of  empire  won 
Whose  sons  sate  silent  when  base  deeds  were  done. 

James  Russell  Lowell. 

The  law  of  action  and  reaction  in  rotten  politics  was 
finding  illustration  in  these  days.  It  was  because  the 
energies  of  the  party  in  power  were  so  completely  ab- 
sorbed in  the  dubious  reconstruction  policies  and  in  the 
maintenance  of  the  spoils  system,  that  an  iniquity  like 
the  Tweed  ring  found  room  to  flourish.  And  if  anybody 
now  threatened  the  party  in  power  in  the  nation  with 
political  retribution,  the  question  promptly  asked  was 
whether  there  would  be  any  gain  in  turning  the  govern- 
ment over  to  a  party  of  which  Tweed  was  the  shining 
light.  RascaUty  in  each  party  finds  a  strong  bulwark  in 
the  rascality  of  the  other  party.  And  I  have  no  doubt 
that  the  overthrow  of  the  Tweed  ring  gave  considerable 
impetus  to  the  movement  which  began  the  next  year  for 
a  renovation  of  the  Republican  Party.  Originating  in 


210  RECOLLECTIONS 

Missouri  under  the  leadership  of  Carl  Schurz,  and  boldly 
attacking  the  southern  policy  of  the  party  in  power, 
this  Liberal  RepubUcan  movement  soon  found  itself 
strongly  supported  by  a  number  of  the  most  influential 
newspapers  of  the  country,  and  by  several  of  the  ablest 
Republican  leaders,  Senator  Trumbull,  Charles  Francis 
Adams,  General  Cox,  Governor  Blair,  of  jMichigan,  Gov- 
ernor Palmer,  of  lUinois,  Judge  Noah  Da\is,  and  Judges 
Stanley  Matthews  and  Hoadley,  of  Ohio,  among  them. 
It  was  a  formidable  uprising ;  and  when  a  mass  conven- 
tion was  called  to  meet  in  Cincinnati  in  May,  with  the 
purpose  of  making  an  independent  nomination  for  the 
presidency,  it  appeared  that  something  important  in 
the  way  of  political  reform  was  about  to  take  place. 

That  President  Grant  would  be  renominated  was 
admitted  by  all;  the  machine  was  irresistible.  But  if 
an  independent  nomination  could  be  made  by  these  Lib- 
eral Republicans  which  the  Democrats  would  accept,  it 
seemed  not  improbable  that  it  might  carry  the  country. 
At  this  distance  it  appears  that  if  the  more  sane  influ- 
ences of  the  movement  could  have  prevailed,  and  a  man 
like  Trumbull  or  Charles  Francis  Adams  could  have  been 
nominated,  the  result  might  have  been  different.  But 
the  nomination  of  Greeley  reduced  the  movement  to  an 
absurdity.  Greeley  did  not  stand  for  the  things  which 
the  serious  men  who  were  behind  this  revolt  believed  in. 
He  had,  indeed,  come  to  sympathize  with  the  demand 
for  a  more  reasonable  southern  policy;  but  even  here 
the  columns  of  the  "Tribune"  bore  witness  to  his  sup- 
port of  the  more  drastic  of  the  reconstruction  measures. 
As  for  civil  semce  reform,  there  was  no  evidence  that 


THE  GREELEY  CAMPAIGN  211 

Greeley  had  any  interest  in  it  whatever;  and  as  to 
the  burning  question  round  which  the  movement  had 
gathered  at  the  outset,  the  need  of  tariff  reform,  he  was 
the  one  man  in  the  country  most  strongly  committed 
against  it. 

Mr,  Greeley  was  a  man  of  warm  humanitarian  im- 
pulses, and  great  enthusiasm  for  popular  rights ;  he  had 
done  good  service  in  arousing  the  anti-slavery  sentiment 
of  the  North,  and,  in  spite  of  certain  petty  eccentricities 
of  dress  and  manner  by  which  he  called  attention  to 
himself  and  signalized  his  hmitations,  a  kindly  feeling 
toward  him  prevailed  throughout  the  North.  But  many 
of  those  who  had  read  the  "Tribune"  all  their  Uves  were 
far  from  being  convinced  that  Mr.  Greeley  was  the  right 
man  for  the  presidency  of  the  United  States ;  they  could 
not  help  feeling  that  the  man  whose  frantic  cry,  "On  to 
Richmond!"  had  done  much  to  precipitate  the  worst 
disaster  of  the  war;  whose  demand  for  the  resignation 
of  the  whole  Cabinet  after  the  battle  of  Bull  Run  had 
revealed  a  similar  heated  judgment,  and  whose  impa- 
tience with  Lincoln  had  again  and  again  found  almost 
hysterical  expression,  was  a  man  of  too  emotional  a 
habit  to  be  a  safe  leader  of  the  nation.  And  therefore 
many  of  those  who  had  hailed  the  Liberal  Republi- 
can movement  with  hope  were  constrained  to  fall  back 
upon  Grant  as,  on  the  whole,  the  more  trustworthy 
executive. 

The  "Independent"  supported  Grant,  as  was  expedi- 
ent, but  its  method  of  supporting  him  was  not  at  all  to 
my  mind.  It  was  too  narrowly  partisan ;  its  treatment  of 
Greeley  was  often  unfair.  Those  who  depended  upon  it 


212  RECOLLECTIONS 

for  information  respecting  the  policy  and  purpose  of  the 
other  party  must  have  been  seriously  misled.  In  all  this 
matter  I  found  myself  in  sharp  disagreement  with  those 
who  controlled  the  poUtical  utterances  of  the  paper, 
and  I  ventured  to  express  my  dissent.  It  appeared  to  me 
especially  discreditable  for  a  journal  which  sought  to 
maintain  a  reHgious  character  to  descend  to  misrepre- 
sentation and  abuse  of  a  political  opponent.  My  protest 
had  little  effect  upon  the  policy  of  the  paper,  and  the 
result  of  the  experience  was  to  lessen,  considerably,  my 
sense  of  the  value  of  my  editorial  opportunity.  That 
the  rehgious  influence  of  the  paper  must  be  impaired 
by  such  poUtical  methods,  I  could  not  help  seeing. 

The  campaign  dragged  on  through  the  summer  to  its 
inevitable  issue.  It  was  by  no  means  an  inspiring  con- 
test. Mr.  Greeley  took  the  stump,  and  made,  on  the 
whole,  an  effective  canvass.  His  plea  for  kindHer  relations 
between  the  North  and  the  South  was  urged  with  an  elo- 
quence that  ought  to  have  moved  the  people,  but  for  the 
most  part  it  was  turned  to  ridicule.  "The  baleful  fires  of 
anger,"  kindled  by  the  war,  were  still  smouldering,  and 
it  was  melancholy  to  see  how  ready  the  politicians  were 
to  fan  them  into  flame  for  party  purposes.  The  cam- 
paign descended,  indeed,  to  a  very  low  level.  Nast's 
pencil,  which  had  been  used  so  effectively  in  the  expos- 
ure of  the  Tweed  ring,  was  employed  in  this  poHtical 
struggle  in  a  manner  which  tended  to  lower  the  respect 
in  which  he  had  been  held.  It  was  a  service  to  pubHc 
morality  to  make  contemptible  and  abhorrent  such 
colossal  criminals  as  Tweed  and  Sweeney  and  Connolly ; 
it  was  quite  another  thing  to  treat  in  the  same  manner 


THE  GREELEY  CAMPAIGN  213 

men  like  Horace  Greeley  and  L}Tiian  Trumbull  and 
Charles  Sumner  and  Carl  Schurz.  The  caricaturist  needs 
a  conscience  and  some  moral  perspective,  else  he  may 
easily  become  a  malefactor. 

The  sweeping  Republican  victory  was  a  crushing  blow 
to  poor  Greeley.  He  was  far  from  being  a  sagacious 
political  prognosticator ;  doubtless  he  had  entertained 
hope  of  being  President,  though  the  October  election 
must  have  greatly  clouded  that  expectation.  But  he  had 
come  home  from  his  speaking-tour  to  find  his  wife  upon 
her  death-bed,  and  she  had  passed  away  before  the  elec- 
tion day.  For  many  days  he  had  watched  by  her  bedside, 
and  the  stress  of  the  campaigning,  and  the  burden  of 
anxiety  and  sorrow,  added  to  the  bitter  disappointment 
of  his  defeat,  were  more  than  he  could  bear.  A  little 
more  than  three  weeks  after  the  votes  were  counted,  they 
carried  him  to  his  grave  in  Greenwood  Cemetery.  As  the 
funeral  cortege  passed  near  my  house  to  the  place  of  the 
dead,  I  could  not  keep  back  my  tears  for  the  tragic  fate 
of  the  man  who  had  been  from  my  childhood  my  politi- 
cal teacher,  and  who,  in  spite  of  many  limitations  and 
frailties,  had  done  a  good  day's  work  for  humanity. 
How  needless,  in  that  hour,  seemed  the  brutal  assaults 
upon  his  character  with  which  the  air  had  been  resound- 
ing !  In  a  letter  to  a  friend  in  New  Hampshire,  shortly 
after  the  election,  Mr.  Greeley  uncovered  his  grief:  "I 
was  the  worst  beaten  man  who  ever  ran  for  high  office. 
And  I  have  been  assailed  so  bitterly  that  I  hardly  knew 
whether  I  was  running  for  President  or  the  Penitentiary. 
In  the  darkest  hour  my  suffering  wife  left  me,  and  none 
too  soon,  for  she  had  suffered  too  deeply  and  too  long. 


214  RECOLLECTIONS 

I  laid  her  in  the  ground  with  hard  dry  eyes.  Well,  I  am 
used  up.  I  cannot  see  before  me.  I  have  slept  little  for 
weeks,  and  my  eyes  are  still  hard  to  close,  while  they 
soon  open  again." 

Some  sense  of  the  vast  injustice  which  partisan  pas- 
sion had  done  this  man  seemed  to  take  possession  of  the 
public  mind  when  the  grave  offered  him  repose;  and 
there  was  kindness  and  consideration  in  the  words  that 
were  spoken  everjrwhere  concerning  him.  Grant  and 
Colfax  and  Henry  Wilson  rode  in  the  same  carriage 
at  his  funeral.  A  small  portion  of  the  appreciation 
which  was  gladly  given  to  him  after  his  death  would 
undoubtedly  have  saved  his  Ufe.  Thus  we  stone  our 
prophets,  and  make  amends  for  our  cruelty  by  hanging 
garlands  on  their  tombs. 

During  these  four  years  of  work  on  the  "Independ- 
ent" my  house  was  in  Brooklyn,  and  the  renewal  of  the 
old  associations  with  the  religious  circles  of  the  city 
where  my  ministerial  work  began  was  grateful  to  me. 
Brookl3rn  was  still,  by  right,  "The  City  of  Churches." 
Matters  ecclesiastical  held  a  leading  interest.  The  popu- 
larity of  Mr.  Beecher  was  still  undimmed ;  it  was  always 
difficult  to  gain  admission  to  his  church  at  any  preach- 
ing service.  Dr.  Richard  S.  Storrs  had  taken  on  a  new 
lease  of  preaching  power,  and  his  audiences,  though  less 
thronged,  were  enthralled  by  his  majestic  eloquence. 
Talmage  was  at  the  top  of  his  fame ;  his  great  tabernacle 
was  always  crowded,  and  his  unparalleled  acrobatics, 
physical  and  rhetorical,  were  an  astonishment  to  many. 
It  was  not  possible  for  me  to  enjoy  so  much  of  this  abun- 


THE  GREELEY  CAMPAIGN  215 

dant  provision  for  the  needs  of  the  spiritual  man  as  I 
would  gladly  have  done;  for  there  were  many  vacant 
pulpits  in  the  metropolis  and  its  neighborhood,  and 
nearly  every  Sunday  found  me  occupying  one  of  them. 
Thus  my  acquaintance  was  pleasantly  extended,  and 
the  preaching  habit  was  maintained  by  constant  exer- 
cise. 

One  of  the  pleasant  associations  of  those  years  was 
afforded  by  membership  in  a  clerical  club,  known  as 
Sigma  Chi.  It  was  an  undenominational  society,  minis- 
ters of  various  communions  being  included  in  the  mem- 
bership. It  met  once  in  two  weeks,  on  Saturday  noon, 
for  a  luncheon,  a  paper,  and  a  discussion.  Dr.  Howard 
Crosby,  Dr.  Thomas  S.  Hastings,  Dr.  Charles  S.  Robin- 
son, of  the  Presbyterians;  Dr.  Foss  (afterward  bishop) 
and  Dr.  Bulkley,  of  the  Methodists;  Dr.  William  M. 
Taylor,  of  the  Congregationalists ;  Dr.  McVickar  (now 
bishop),  of  the  Episcopalians,  and  others,  were  in  the 
membership.  There  were  twenty-five  or  thirty  men, 
most  of  them  mentally  alert  and  courageous,  and  the 
discussions  were  apt  to  be  trenchant  and  enlightening. 
To  Crosby  and  Hastings,  who  were  among  the  seniors 
of  the  club,  my  memory  goes  back  with  especial  grati- 
tude for  the  many  manifestations  of  their  courtesy  to 
those  of  us  who  were  juniors.  Crosby  was  a  man  of  flash- 
ing wit ;  his  repartee  was  instantaneous,  and  his  good- 
fellowship  was  unfailing.  The  discussions  of  the  club 
were  mainly  theological,  but,  as  I  recall  them,  they  were 
kept  within  the  Unes  of  the  traditional  evangelical  the- 
ology. As  yet  scarcely  a  ripple  had  appeared  upon 
the  placid  surface  of  American  orthodoxy.     Matthew 


216  RECOLLECTIONS 

Arnold's  "Literature  and  Dogma"  had  excited  some 
discussion,  but  Arnold  was  not  taken  seriously  by  many 
of  those  who  read  him.  I  cannot  recall  that  any  of  the 
questions  respecting  the  Bible  and  the  future  Hfe,  which 
were  soon  to  agitate  the  church,  were  before  the  club 
during  my  membership  in  it. 

"Too  Much  Success"  is  the  title  of  a  late  essay  by  one 
of  our  most  thoughtful  writers.  It  is  evident  that  the 
pohtical  party  in  power  was  suffering  from  this  cause 
in  1872.  The  overw^helming  victory  had  silenced  the 
demand  for  reform.  The  pohtical  leaders  accepted  it 
as  a  mandate  from  the  people  to  follow  their  own  incli- 
nations. The  administration  of  the  government  had 
become  loose  and  extravagant,  and  needed  vigorous 
overhauling  in  many  places,  but  there  w^as  httle  dispo- 
sition on  the  part  of  the  men  at  the  bead  of  affairs  to 
take  these  matters  in  hand. 

One  of  the  politicians  who  had  some  sense  of  the 
seriousness  of  the  situation  was  the  newly  elected  Vice- 
President,  Henry  Wilson.  Before  the  end  of  the  year,  on 
one  of  his  periodical  visits  to  the  "Independent"  ofl&ce, 
he  told  us  something  of  his  anxiety.  He  had  been  to  see 
the  President,  and  had  warned  him  that  trouble  was 
brewing ;  that  the  people  were  beginning  to  be  critical  in 
their  judgment  of  the  administration ;  that  the  only  sal-^ 
vation  for  the  party  in  power  was  in  a  prompt  and  ener- 
getic correction  of  abuses.  To  all  this  President  Grant 
turned  a  deaf  ear.  "There  is  no  occasion  for  anxiety," 
he  said.  "Look  at  the  tremendous  majority  the  people 
have  given  us.    They  are  not  worrying  about  matters 


THE  CREDIT  MOBILIER  217 

in  Washington."   Wilson  shook  his  head  gravely.  He 
clearly  saw  that  it  was  a  case  of  too  much  success. 

It  was  not  many  months  before  the  most  infatuated 
partisans  were  forced  to  see  it.  During  the  campaigns 
the  astounding  charge  had  been  made  by  the  New  York 
"Sun"  that  a  million  dollars'  worth  of  stock  had  been 
distributed  in  bribes  to  members  of  Congress  by  the 
Credit  Mobilier,  the  construction  company  which  was 
engaged  in  building  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad.  The 
charge  was  treated  by  the  dominant  party  as  a  mere 
campaign  fabrication;  but  on  the  assembling  of  Con- 
gress in  December,  an  investigating  committee  was 
appointed  by  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  it  soon 
began  to  appear  that,  while  the  matter  had  been  grossly 
exaggerated,  there  was  truth  enough  in  the  charge  to 
give  great  concern  to  all  honorable  citizens.  It  is  not 
needful  here  to  rehearse  the  details  of  that  disgraceful 
history,  nor  to  mention  the  names  of  the  men  who  were 
involved  in  it.  The  fact  was  that  a  great  corporation, 
depending  directly  on  Congress  for  favor  and  protec- 
tion, had  distributed  considerable  amounts  of  its  stock 
among  the  members  of  Congress.  The  stock  was  sold  in 
all  cases  for  far  less  than  market  value ;  in  some  cases 
it  seems  to  have  been  practically  given  away.  Various 
grades  and  shades  of  corruption  came  to  Ught  in  this 
investigation ;  in  some  instances  the  guilt  was  more  fla- 
grant than  in  others,  but  the  whole  revelation  was  a  dis- 
turbing sign  of  the  presence  in  our  national  legislation  of 
dangerous  influences,  and  of  a  deplorable  lack,  in  many 
of  our  representatives,  of  that  sense  of  personal  honor 
which  is  the  only  safeguard  of  public  morality.    And 


218  RECOLLECTIONS 

the  solemn  words  of  the  Committee  of  the  House  which 
investigated  this  business  have  been  gaining  force  ever 
since  they  were  written :  — 

This  country  is  fast  becoming  filled  with  gigantic  cor- 
porations, wielding  and  controlling  immense  aggregations 
of  money  and  clearly  commanding  great  influence  and 
power.  It  is  notorious  in  many  state  legislatures  that 
these  influences  are  often  controlling,  so  that  in  effect 
they  become  the  ruling  power  of  the  state.  Within  a  few 
years  Congress  has  to  some  extent  been  brought  within 
similar  influence,  and  the  knowledge  of  the  public  on  that 
subject  has  brought  great  discredit  upon  the  body,  far 
more,  we  believe,  than  there  were  facts  to  justify.  But 
such  is  the  tendenc}''  of  the  time,  and  the  belief  is  far  too 
general  that  all  men  can  be  ruled  with  money,  and  that  the 
use  of  such  means  to  carry  public  measures  is  legitimate 
and  proper.  No  member  of  Congress  ought  to  place  him- 
seK  in  circumstances  of  suspicion,  so  that  any  discredit  of 
the  body  shall  arise  on  his  account.  It  is  of  the  highest 
importance  that  the  national  legislature  should  be  free 
of  all  taint  of  corruption,  and  it  is  of  almost  equal  neces- 
sity that  the  people  should  feel  confident  that  it  is  so.  In 
a  free  government  like  ours  we  cannot  long  expect  the 
people  will  respect  the  laws,  if  they  lose  respect  for  the 
law-makers. 

The  fight  which  has  fallen  upon  these  words  out  of  the 
experience  of  the  last  thirty-six  years  makes  them  lu- 
minous and  impressive.  To  what  extent  immense  aggre- 
gations of  money  would  seek  to  control  the  resources  and 
the  destinies  of  this  people  in  the  s-^iftly  coming  years 
Mr.  Poland  and  his  associates  on  the  Committee  could 
have  had  but  a  dim  conception.   Yet  it  must  be  said 


THE  CREDIT   MOBILIER  219 

that  there  probably  have  not  been  many  attempts  in 
the  subsequent  years  to  influence  Congressional  action 
by  methods  as  direct  as  were  those  of  the  Credit  Mobi- 
lier.  The  fate  of  those  who  were  involved  in  this  transac- 
tion has  been  a  terrible  warning  to  all  their  successors  in 
office.  The  great  combinations  of  wealth  have  found  it 
inexpedient  to  influence  legislation  by  the  method  of 
direct  approach ;  it  is  safer,  and  probably  more  econo- 
mical, to  own  legislators  than  to  hire  them.  And  ways 
have  been  found  of  guiding  the  choice  of  the  people,  in 
the  primaries  and  at  the  polls,  toward  men  who  can 
be  depended  on  to  protect  the  interests  of  the  moneyed 
classes.  No  one  can  know  just  how  far  this  has  gone; 
these  methods  are  subterranean.  But  it  has  come  to  be 
believed  by  the  people  at  large  that  the  great  corpora- 
tions have  long  had  trusty  representatives  in  the  na- 
tional legislature.  This  much  is  surely  true.  During  the 
last  twenty  years  great  aggregations  of  capital  have  been 
diligently  inventing  and  improving  methods  by  which 
they  have  been  able  to  lay  the  industries  of  the  land 
under  tribute,  and  to  build  up  enormous  fortunes  by  the 
crippling  or  destruction  of  their  weaker  competitors. 
All  this  was  done  under  cover  of  law,  and  could  have 
been  prevented  by  law.  Yet  the  people  who  make  the 
laws  have  shown  but  a  languid  interest  in  preventing 
and  punishing  these  oppressions.  It  is  only  within  the 
last  few  years,  imder  the  spur  of  a  resolute  executive, 
that  any  effective  action  in  this  direction  has  been 
taken. 

The  depressing  effect  of  the  Credit  Mobilier  scandals 
upon  the  public  mind  was  not  relieved  by  the  progress 


220  RECOLLECTIONS 

of  political  events  at  the  national  capital.  It  soon 
became  evident  that  the  influences  surrounding  Grant 
were  determined  to  kill  the  civil  service  reform,  and  Mr. 
Curtis,  who  had  supported  Grant,  resigned  the  chair- 
manship of  the  Commission,  because,  as  he  expressly 
said,  the  things  which  were  taking  place  showed  "  an 
abandonment  both  of  the  spirit  and  of  the  letter  of  the 
civil  service  regulations." 

The  ''Salary  Grab"  which  soon  followed  was  another 
indication  of  the  spirit  which  was  ruling  in  the  councils 
of  the  nation ;  it  was  engineered  by  Benjamin  F.  But- 
ler, of  Massachusetts,  who  had  become  the  evil  genius 
of  the  Grant  administration.  Nothing  is  so  discreditable 
to  the  memory  of  Grant  as  the  fact  of  the  ascendency 
which  this  marplot  succeeded  in  establishing  over  him. 

The  scandals  connected  with  the  New  York  and  Bos- 
ton Custom-Houses,  the  shocking  revelations  about  the 
Whiskey  Ring,  the  exposure  of  the  villainy  of  Babcock, 
the  President's  confidential  friend  and  private  secretary, 
and  the  impeachment  of  Belknap,  his  Secretary  of  War, 
were  all  indications  of  the  extent  to  which  corruption 
was  infesting  the  national  administration.  It  is  prob- 
able that  no  period  in  the  history  of  the  'nation  has 
witnessed  such  a  carnival  of  graft  and  malfeasance  as 
that  of  Grant's  second  administration. 

And  this  was  mainly  due  to  the  fact  that  the  game  of 
pohtics  was  being  played  in  an  insincere  and  fraudulent 
manner.  The  issues  were  largely  false  issues.  The  pas- 
sions enkindled  by  the  war  were  kept  burning  for  poUti- 
cal  purposes;  reconstruction  measures  were  imposed 
upon  the  South  which  goaded  the  southern  people  to 


THE  CREDIT  MOBILIER  221 

madness,  and  when  they  undertook  to  free  themselves 
from  the  oppression,  the  most  harrowing  tales  were  told 
of  their  lawlessness  and  brutality.  Under  cover  of  these 
southern  outrages  all  sorts  of  rascaUty  flourished  in 
the  national  government.  The  eyes  of  the  people  of  the 
North  were  kept  fixed  upon  the  disorders  of  the  South 
so  that  they  should  not  observe  what  was  going  on  at 
Washington  and  in  the  Federal  offices. 

All  this,  I  cannot  help  reiterating,  was  the  natural 
fruit  of  the  war.  Just  such  sequelae  as  these  are  to  be 
looked  for  at  the  end  of  any  war,  and  especially  of  a 
civil  war.  War  is  hell,  and  it  sets  up  continual  pande- 
monium in  any  commonwealth.  It  inverts  all  moral 
relations;  it  undermines  social  obligations;  it  spreads 
its  blight  through  every  department  of  Ufe.  No  nation 
can  engage  in  a  protracted  war  without  suffering  a  seri- 
ous loss  of  national  probity  and  honor.  The  worst  losses 
are  outside  of  the  army  and  after  the  war.  We  make 
much  of  the  great  miUtary  virtues  of  courage,  and  sub- 
ordination, and  readiness  to  sacrifice  life  for  fatherland, 
and  there  are,  beyond  a  question,  moral  gains  of  great 
value  in  war  to  those  who  meet  these  tests  worthily. 
There  is  no  terrible  calamity  out  of  which  brave  and 
faithful  souls  do  not  bring  honor  and  virtue;  but  the 
total  effect  of  war  upon  the  nation  is  disastrous ;  inevit- 
ably it  lowers  the  moral  tone;  it  scatters  the  seeds  of 
moral  pestilence;  it  results  in  just  such  disorders  and 
corruptions  as  those  which  disfigure  the  pages  of  our 
national  history  in  the  decade  following  the  close  of 
the  Civil  War.  ^^^lile  we  give  full  honor  to  the  courage 
and  consecration  of  the  men  who  gave  to  their  country 


222  RECOLLECTIONS 

on  the  battlefield  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion,  we 
must  not  shut  our  eyes  to  the  terrible  moral  effects  of  the 
enterprise  in  which  they  were  thus  summoned  to  lay 
down  their  Uves. 

The  physical  losses  which  a  nation  suffers  in  such  a 
war  —  the  loss  of  life,  the  destruction  of  property,  the 
crippling  of  industry,  the  creation  of  an  army  of  de- 
pendents —  are  appalUng ;  but  the  moral  losses,  —  the 
weakening  of  the  social  bond,  the  unbridling  of  greed,  the 
letting  loose  of  the  plunderers,  the  fomenting  of  sus- 
picion and  distrust,  the  creation  of  enmities  which  make 
social  reconstruction  well-nigh  impossible,  —  these  are 
the  deadly  injuries  of  which,  before  entering  upon  war, 
we  ought  to  make  due  account.  It  must  be  that  the 
nations  will  soon  find  a  better  way  of  settUng  their 
disputes. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  SWING  TRIAL 

0  joy  supreme  I  I  know  the  Voice, 
Like  none  beside  on  earth  or  sea; 

Yea,  more,  O  soul  of  mine,  rejoice, 
By  all  that  He  requires  of  me, 
I  know  what  God  himself  must  be. 

No  picture  to  my  aid  I  call, 

I  shape  no  image  in  my  prayer; 

1  only  know  in  Him  is  all 

Of  life,  light,  beauty,  everywhere, 
Eternal  Goodness  here  and  there  I 

I  know  He  is,  and  what  He  is, 

Whose  one  great  purpose  is  the  good 

Of  all.   I  rest  my  soul  on  His 
Immortal  Love  and  Fatherhood ; 
And  trust  Him,  as  His  children  should. 

John  Greenleaf  Whittier. 

I  HAVE  said  that  the  theological  pool  was  still  un- 
troubled, when  I  took  up  my  task  upon  the  "Independ- 
ent." But  signs  of  disturbance  began  to  appear  after  a 
year  or  two.  I  can  hardly  tell  how  it  began ;  some  indi- 
cations of  restiveness  under  the  restraints  of  the  tradi- 
tional orthodoxy  were  audible  in  certain  quarters.  The 
"Independent"  was  interested  in  such  phenomena,  and 
began  to  take  an  active  part  in  discussing  them.  No- 
thing very  radical  was  contended  for ;  the  point  mainly 
insisted  on  was  that  theology  must  be  moral.  Every 
doctrine  must  have  an  ethical  foundation.  Doctrines 
which  fail  to  agree  with  the  plain  principles  of  morality 


224  RECOLLECTIONS 

cannot  be  true.  Doctrines  which  represent  God  as  acting 
unjustly  must  be  false  doctrines.  The  foundation  of 
theology  is  in  the  statement  that  the  Judge  of  all  the 
earth  will  do  right.  And  if  God's  government  is  a  moral 
government,  there  must  be  between  God  and  men  a 
common  measure  of  morahty.  The  principles  which  gov- 
ern the  conduct  of  a  righteous  God  must  be  principles 
which  approve  themselves  to  the  consciences  of  right- 
eous men.  And  when  we  are  asked  to  beheve  doctrines 
which  imply  that  God  is  unjust,  we  ought  with  indig- 
nation to  reject  them.  Something  hke  this  was  said 
somewhat  frequently  in  the  "Independent."  I  find 
in  the  number  for  July  3,  1S73,  an  editorial  entitled 
''Immoral  Theology,"  from  which  I  quote:  — 

To  teach  that  God  is  a  being  who  has  a  perfect  right  to 
bring  into  the  world  a  creature  with  faculties  impaired, 
with  no  power  to  resist  temptation,  utterly  unable  to  do 
right,  powerless  even  to  repent  of  the  wrong  which  he  is 
fated  to  do,  and  then  send  to  everlasting  misery  this  help- 
less creature  for  the  sin  which  he  could  not  help  commit- 
ting, —  to  teach  such  a  doctrine  as  this  about  God  is  to 
inflict  upon  religion  a  terrible  injury  and  to  subvert  the 
very  foundations  of  morality.  To  say  that  God  may 
justly  punish  a  man  for  the  sins  of  his  ancestors,  that 
God  does  blame  us  for  what  happened  long  before  we 
were  born,  is  to  blaspheme  God,  if  there  be  any  such  thing 
as  blasphemy.  To  say  that  any  such  thing  is  clearly 
taught  in  the  Bible  is  to  say  that  the  Bible  clearly  teaches 
a  monstrous  lie.  Yet  such  theology  as  this  is  taught  in 
several  of  our  theological  seminaries  and  preached  from 
many  of  our  pulpits.  It  is  idle  to  say  that  it  is  nothing  but 
a  philosophical  refinement;  that  the  men  who  come  out 


THE  SWING  TRIAL  225 

of  our  theological  seminaries  with  these  notions  in  their 
heads  never  make  any  use  of  them  in  their  pulpits.  They 
do  make  use  of  them.  They  are  scattering  this  atrocious 
stuff  all  over  the  land.  They  are  making  infidels  faster 
than  they  are  converting  sinners.  Men  say,  "If  this  is 
your  God,  worship  him,  if  you  want  to,  but  do  not  ask  us 
to  bow  down  to  your  Moloch ! "  Who  can  blame  them  ? 
For  our  own  part  we  say,  with  all  emphasis,  that  between 
such  a  theology  as  this  and  atheism  we  should  promptly 
choose  the  latter. 

The  obviousness  of  these  contentions  does  not  need 
to  be  emphasized ;  it  would  seem  that  principles  so  ele- 
mentary might  have  been  taken  for  granted;  but  in 
maintaining  them  the  "Independent"  soon  had  a  lively 
fight  on  its  hands.  The  organs  of  several  of  the  creeds 
came  to  the  rescue  of  their  traditions,  and  undertook 
to  defend  the  dogmas  which  were  thus  impugned.  The 
controversy  extended  in  a  more  or  less  desultory  man- 
ner through  several  months. 

One  of  the  newspapers  which  engaged  most  actively 
in  this  discussion  was  the  "Interior,"  of  Chicago,  then 
edited  by  Professor  Francis  L.  Patton,  now  of  Princeton, 
who  was  then  connected  with  the  McCormick  Seminary 
of  Chicago.  It  was  not  long  before  Professor  Patton 
found  a  heretic  nearer  home  in  the  person  of  Da\'id 
Swing,  pastor  of  a  Presbyterian  church  in  Chicago,  who 
was  preaching  to  great  audiences  every  Sunday  in 
McVickar's  theatre,  and  profoundly  influencing  the 
thought  of  that  city.  Professor  Swing  was  not  a  polemi- 
cal preacher ;  he  was  not  attacking  the  traditional  theo- 
logy, though  the  implications  of  much  of  his  teaching 


226  RECOLLECTIONS 

may  have  contradicted  it ;  he  was  a  poet,  and  a  seer,  with 
a  reverent  insight  into  the  deep  things  of  the  Spirit,  a 
tender  sympathy  -with  everything  human,  a  streaming 
humor,  a  radiant  optimism,  a  keen  dehght  in  all  things 
beautiful ;  and  his  preaching  was  attracting  multitudes 
outside  the  ranks  of  the  church-goers.  Nor  was  there 
any  just  cause  of  complaint  against  him  on  the  ground 
of  heresy.  He  was  not,  indeed,  preaching  all  the  horrible 
doctrines  of  the  Westminster  Confession,  nor  were  many 
of  his  brethren  in  the  Presbyterian  ministry ;  his  diver- 
gence from  the  ipsissima  verba  of  the  creed  was  really  no 
greater  than  that  of  thousands.  The  worst  of  his  heresy 
was  his  determination  to  believe  in  a  good  and  reason- 
able God,  and  to  apply  to  all  doctrines  that  ethical  test 
for  which  the  "Independent"  had  been  contending.  But 
the  "Interior"  found  in  him  an  enemy  of  the  faith  once 
for  all  deUvered  to  the  saints,  and  after  a  somewhat  bit- 
ter newspaper  warfare  upon  him,  it  was  aimounced  that 
charges  of  heresy  had  been  preferred  against  him  by 
Professor  Patton.  The  trial  took  place  in  the  spring  of 
1874,  and  created  no  little  excitement  in  ecclesiastical 
circles.  The  Chicago  dailies  gave  verbatim  reports  of  it, 
the  associated  press  devoted  large  space  to  it,  the  secular 
as  well  as  the  religious  newspapers  freely  discussed  it. 

Professor  Patton  is  a  keen  logician,  and  he  is  thor- 
oughly grounded  in  the  technicaUties  of  the  Calvinistic 
system.  He  presented  a  formidable  array  of  extracts 
from  Professor  Swing's  sermons,  from  which  it  was  easily 
proved  that  he  was  failing  to  teach  many  things  specified 
in  the  standards  of  the  church.  But  there  was  no  man 
among  the  judges  in  the  Presbytery  against  whom  this 


THE  SWING  TRIAL  227 

could  not  have  been  proved.  Any  attempt  to  force  a 
strict  construction  upon  the  ministry  of  the  Presbyte- 
rian church  would  result  in  driving  a  good  share  of  its 
ministers  from  their  pulpits.  Nobody  believed  the  hor- 
rible article  which  taught  infant  damnation,  and  which 
has  since  been  expunged.  All  ministers  of  the  church 
were  taking  more  or  less  Uberty  in  the  interpretation 
of  this  obsolescent  symbol.  The  only  question  was, 
how  much  liberty  should  be  allowed.  And  while  it  was 
made  to  appear  that  Professor  Swing  had  broadened, 
considerably,  the  interpretation  of  the  standards,  three 
fourths  of  the  Presbytery  were  satisfied  that  he  had 
held  fast  to  the  substance  of  the  faith,  and  voted  to 
acquit  him. 

But  the  Chicago  Presbytery  was  made  up  of  men  of 
imusual  breadth  and  intelligence ;  its  leader,  the  Rev- 
erend Dr.  Patterson,  the  grandfather  of  the  young  So- 
cialist who  is  making  things  interesting  nowadays  in 
the  western  metropolis,  was  a  benignant  and  Uberal- 
minded  man,  and  he  put  himself  strongly  on  the  side  of 
Professor  Swing;  the  ministers  of  Chicago  who  knew 
him  were  nearly  all  his  friends.  And  the  prosecutor 
judged  that  if  the  case  were  appealed  to  the  Synod  of 
Illinois,  the  local  influence  in  favor  of  S^^dng  would  be 
overcome  and  the  decision  reversed.  Notice  was  there- 
fore immediately  given  of  such  appeal,  and  the  an- 
nouncement was  promptly  met  by  the  resignation  of  Mr. 
Swing  from  the  ministr}''  of  the  Presbyterian  church. 
That  step  the  "Independent"  greatly  deplored.  In 
an  editorial  entitled  "A  Good  Fight  Declined"  it  de- 
clared :  — 


228  RECOLLECTIONS 

Mr.  Swing  has  made  a  great  mistake.  Through  the 
whole  of  the  trial  before  the  Presbytery  he  has  borne  him- 
self steadily  and  manfully ;  his  good  temper,  his  frank- 
ness, his  courage  have  increased  the  respect  in  which  his 
friends  held  him ;  but  now,  at  the  end  of  the  first  trial, 
when  more  than  three  to  one  of  the  members  of  his 
Presbytery,  including  every  prominent  pastor  in  Chicago, 
have  voted  to  acquit  him  of  the  charges  made  against 
him,  he  has  withdrawn  from  the  Presbyterian  church. 
His  reason  for  this  step  is  his  unwilHngness  to  continue  the 
litigation  which  his  prosecutor  has  forced  upon  him  by 
appealing  the  case  to  the  higher  courts.  .  .  .  We  have  no 
doubt  that  Mr.  Swing  has  done  what  seemed  to  him  right. 
He  is  not  a  man  of  war;  the  excitements  of  the  trial, 
though  they  must  have  been,  for  the  most  part,  pleasur- 
able rather  than  painful,  have  severely  taxed  his  strength, 
and  he  is  unwiUing  to  encounter  the  fatigues  and  hard- 
ships which  must  attend  the  continuation  of  the  case  in 
the  Synod  and  the  General  Assembly.  Besides,  it  seems 
to  him,  doubtless,  that  the  time  and  strength  consumed 
in  warfare  of  this  sort  are  just  so  much  subtracted  from 
his  proper  work.  .  .  .  Nevertheless,  we  cannot  help  feel- 
ing sorry  that  he  has  not,  at  whatever  cost  to  himself, 
accepted  the  challenge  now  addressed  to  him.  .  .  .  There 
is  a  set  of  literalists,  like  Professor  Patton,  who  keep 
insisting  that  no  man  has  any  business  in  the  Presbyte- 
rian church  who  does  not  accept,  ipsissimis  verbis,  all  the 
statements  of  the  confession  of  faith.  Everybody  knows 
that  this  is  absurd,  but  these  people  will  keep  up  their 
clamor  till  their  mouths  are  stopped  by  a  decision  of  the 
General  Assembly.  Nearly  everybody  knows  that  an  at- 
tempt to  enforce  a  literal  acceptance  of  the  terms  of  the 
Confession  would  drive  out  of  the  Presbyterian  church 
at  least  half  of  its  ministers.  The  Confession  was  framed 


THE  SWING  TRIAL  229 

two  hundred  and  thirty  years  ago,  and  it  is  ridiculous  to 
suppose  that  the  Hght  which  has  been  shed  upon  BibUcal 
and  theological  science  since  that  day  has  revealed  no 
flaw  in  this  old  document,  or  that  its  phrases,  many  of 
which,  when  they  were  adopted,  were  shrewd  compro- 
mises between  conflicting  opinions,  are  all  in  this  year 
of  grace  the  exact  and  scientific  expression  of  the  faith  of 
the  living  Presb3rterian  church.  Dr.  Patterson  was  right, 
therefore,  in  saying  the  other  day  that  the  Confession 
ought  to  be  revised,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether  this  can  be 
done.  There  is  another  alternative,  and  that  is  to  let  the 
Creed  stand  as  a  historical  symbol,  and  to  obtain  from  the 
highest  tribunal  in  the  church  the  decision  that  within 
certain  hmits  there  shall  be  liberty  in  the  interpretation 
of  it.  Mr.  Swing  was  the  man  above  all  others  to  secure 
this  decision.  His  reputation  is  unblemished,  his  hearty 
acceptance  of  the  vital  truths  of  the  Christian  faith  is 
manifest,  his  devotion  to  his  work  and  his  success  in  it 
are  unquestionable,  he  is  the  best  loved  and  the  most 
influential  Presbyterian  minister  in  the  Northwest.  The 
Presbyterian  church  would  not  have  ventured  to  expel 
such  a  man  from  its  communion,  and  when  the  decision 
affirming  his  good  standing  had  been  proclaimed,  there 
would  have  been  light  all  round  the  sky,  and  thousands 
who  are  chafing  in  the  bonds  of  old-time  creeds  would 
have  rejoiced  in  the  Uberty  wherewith  Christ  makes  us 
free. 

I  have  quoted  these  words  as  an  expression  of  the 
principles  by  which  I  have  sought  to  guide  my  own  con- 
duct in  the  difficult  matters  of  creed  subscription  and 
denominational  loyalty.  There  is  an  editorial  here,  writ- 
ten in  one  of  the  early  months  of  my  service  on  the  "  In- 
dependent," entitled  "Come-outers  and  Stay-inners,"  — 


230  RECOLLECTIONS 

based  upon  a  saying  of  Governor  Andrew:  "I  am  not  a 
Come-outer ;  lam  a  Stay-inner."  The  duty  of  liberal  men 
to  stay  in  the  churches  to  which  they  belong  —  if  they 
can  be  tolerated  there  —  and,  by  kindness  and  patience 
and  fidelity  to  the  truth  as  they  see  it,  to  do  what  they 
can  to  enlighten  and  broaden  the  fellowship  of  those 
churches,  has  always  appeared  to  me  very  plain.  The 
question  became,  in  subsequent  years,  a  very  practical 
one  for  me;  these  words  will  show  that  I  had  time 
enough  to  consider  it. 

Mr.  Swing's  subsequent  career  in  Chicago  was  one  of 
great  honor  and  usefulness.  The  church  which  he  organ- 
ized, and  to  which  he  preached,  for  many  years,  in  the 
great  Music  Hall,  was  a  strong  force  in  the  life  of  that 
city ;  and,  until  the  day  of  his  death,  this  good  man 
held,  in  an  unusual  degi'ee,  the  respect  and  affection  of 
the  people.  Nor  was  this  due  to  any  sensational  or  ad 
captandum  methods.  His  art,  as  a  preacher,  was  sim- 
plicity itself ;  there  were  no  oratorical  fireworks ;  he  read 
his  sermons,  with  no  attempts  at  elocutionary  effect; 
they  bore  the  character  of  essays  rather  than  of  orations. 
What  held  the  people  was,  partly,  the  beauty  in  which 
his  thought  was  always  clothed,  but,  more  than  all, 
the  sincerity,  the  reality,  the  genuineness  of  it  all.  He 
was  a  pure-hearted,  gentle,  faithful  soul ;  the  words  that 
he  spoke,  like  his  Master's,  were  words  of  spirit  and  life, 
and  therefore  the  common  people,  and  all  the  people, 
heard  him  gladly.  The  fact  that  by  methods  so  quiet  and 
unsensational  a  preacher  could  fill,  Sunday  after  Sun- 
day, so  large  an  assembly  room,  in  the  heart  of  the  busi- 
ness quarter  of  a  great  city,  is  reassuring  to  those  who 


THE  SWING  TRIAL  231 

would  like  to  believe  in  the  effectiveness  of  simple 
truth. 

The  success  of  Mr.  Swing  as  a  teacher  of  religion  was 
due  also  in  part  to  the  fact  that  he  knew  how  to  mediate 
between  the  church  and  the  great  outside  multitude 
which  has  largely  -withdrawn  from  its  influence.  "WTiile 
he  treated  the  dogmas  of  the  church  with  great  freedom, 
yet  he  sought  to  present  the  essential  truths  of  religion 
in  a  manner  so  untechnical  that  they  should  commend 
themselves  to  the  common  sense  of  men.  My  beUef  is 
that  great  numbers  of  men  who  had  been  repelled  from 
the  traditional  statements  of  religious  truth,  were  led 
back  to  respect  and  reverence  by  the  teachings  of  Mr. 
Swing. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

NEWSPAPER   ETHICS 

And  they  serve  men  austerely, 
After  their  own  genius,  clearly, 
Without  a  false  humility ; 
For  this  is  Love's  nobility,  — 
Not  to  scatter  bread  and  gold. 
Goods  and  raiment  bought  and  sold; 
But  to  hold  fast  his  simple  sense, 
And  speak  the  speech  of  innocence, 
And  with  hand  and  body  and  blood. 
To  make  his  bosom-counsel  good. 
For  he  that  feeds  men  serveth  few ; 
He  serves  all  who  dares  be  true. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

Toward  the  end  of  my  fourth  year  in  the  "Inde- 
pendent" office,  certain  matters  which  had  been  disturb- 
ing me  more  or  less  through  the  whole  of  my  service 
there,  took  on  a  form  so  aggravated  that  it  became  evi- 
dent to  me  that  I  must  give  up  my  work,  and  on  Novem- 
ber 3,  1874,  I  gave  the  stipulated  three  months'  notice 
which  terminated  my  engagement.  It  was  not  a  grateful 
conclusion,  for  the  labor  in  which  I  had  been  engaged 
was,  in  many  ways,  more  congenial  and  inspiring  than 
anything  that  I  had  ever  tried  to  do ;  the  compensation 
was  the  largest  I  had  ever  earned ;  the  associations  in 
the  office,  on  the  whole,  were  very  pleasant. 

What  troubled  me  was  the  business  management  of 
the  paper,  especially  in  the  matter  of  advertising.  I  do 
not  think  that  the  "Independent"  was,  in  this  matter, 


NEWSPAPER  ETHICS  233 

a  sinner  above  all  the  weekly  and  daily  journals  of  the 
period ;  most  of  them  practiced,  more  or  less  continu- 
ously, the  arts  which  appeared  to  me  objectionable; 
many  of  them  resorted,  now  and  again,  to  methods 
which  were  never  tolerated  in  our  office.  It  was  not 
uncommon  to  discover,  in  the  editorial  and  news  col- 
umns of  some  of  these  journals,  matter  which  wore  the 
garb  of  journalistic  expression,  but  which  the  practiced 
eye  discerned  to  be  simply  an  advertisement.  From 
this  abuse  our  Hterary  and  editorial  columns  were  abso- 
lutely free.  Only  once  during  my  stay  in  the  oflEice  was 
it  attempted  to  insert  an  advertisement  among  our  edi- 
torial notes,  and  the  insurrection  which  that  provoked 
brought  a  promise  that  it  should  never  occur  again.  The 
methods  of  the  "Independent"  of  which  I  was  disposed 
to  complain  were  confined  to  one  or  two  departments 
in  which  advertising  matter  was  more  or  less  skillfully 
disguised.  There  was  a  department  of  "PubUsher's 
Notices,"  adjoining  the  editorial  page,  in  which  the  mat- 
ter was  printed  in  editorial  type,  and  leaded  to  have 
the  exact  appearance  of  editorial  matter.  It  was  often 
written,  also,  in  the  editorial  style,  with  the  first  person 
plural.  There  was  an  "Insurance  Department,"  which 
purported  to  discuss  insurance  questions,  and  there  was 
a  "  Financial  Department,"  both  of  which,' undoubtedly, 
were  constructed  in  the  same  way.  Now  it  is  true  that 
these  departments  were  announced  as  advertising  de- 
partments in  every  number  of  the  "Independent"  ;  and 
the  public  was  informed  that  reading  notices  in  them 
cost  one  dollar  a  fine.  Readers  of  inteUigence  were  not 
deceived  by  this  device.    Of  course  it  was  not  intended 


'  234  RECOLLECTIONS 

to  deceive  readers  of  intelligence.  But  a  large  percent- 
age, perhaps  a  majority  of  the  readers,  even  of  a  journal 
like  the  "Independent,"  are  casual  or  careless  readers, 
to  whom  these  reading  notices,  in  editorial  form,  would 
appear  to  be  the  opinions  of  the  editor.  It  was  in  the 
expectation  of  deceiving  these  dull-witted  readers  that 
the  advertisers  were  willing  to  pay  twice  as  much  for 
these  reading  notices  as  they  paid  for  ordinary  adver- 
tising space.  And  the  journal,  for  the  double  rate,  was 
willing  to  lend  itself  to  this  scheme  of  the  advertisers, 
in  deceiving  the  innocent  and  the  unwary. 

In  a  note  to  the  publisher,  written  in  May,  1873,  I 
made  this  frank  statement :  — 

I  have  never  been  satisfied  that  the  Publisher's  Notices 
are  strictly  honest.  They  appear  to  be  what  they  are  not. 
It  may  be  said  that  very  few  persons  consider  them  to  be 
other  than  advertisements,  but  if  this  is  so,  why  not  put 
them  under  the  head  of  advertisements?  I  suppose  you 
get  extra  rates  for  them,  and  that  these  extra  rates  are 
paid  because  they  appear  to  be  the  publisher's  opinions, 
and  because  they  may  be  quoted  into  other  papers  from 
the  "Independent."  That,  as  you  know,  is  constantly 
done,  and  it  gives  the  impression  that  the  "  Independent " 
is  a  monster  puffing-machine. 

Such  was  the  scruple,  in  which  I  confess  that  I  did  not 
find  much  sympathy  among  newspaper  men,  but  which 
kept  growing  more  burdensome  to  me,  until,  in  the  fall 
of  1874,  certain  transactions  transpired,  concerning 
which  it  is  not  needful  that  I  should  go  into  particulars, 
but  which  made  it  clear  to  me  that  I  could  no  longer 
share  the  editorial  responsibility  for  this  journal.  In  the 


NEWSPAPER  ETHICS  235 

note  to  the  publisher  in  which  I  resigned  my  position 
I  said :  — 

I  cannot  think  as  you  do  about  those  departments. 
They  seem  to  me  essentially  evil,  and  a  source  of  weak- 
ness to  the  paper.  My  scruple  may  be  a  foolish  one,  but 
I  cannot  overcome  it.  It  is  quite  true  that  most  of  the 
other  papers  have  something  of  the  same  sort,  but  if  the 
thing  is  wrong,  that  is  no  excuse.  You  think  that  I  am  not 
responsible ;  but  suppose  that  I  was  the  pastor  of  a  church 
in  the  basement  of  which  the  President  of  the  Board  of 
Trustees  kept  a  policy  shop ;  would  n't  my  preaching  be 
somewhat  discounted  ?  The  analogy  is  not  perfect,  but  it 
is  close  enough  to  indicate  how  difficult  it  is  to  separate 
two  departments  of  a  church  or  a  newspaper  in  the  popu- 
lar mind,  and  count  one  clean  and  the  other  unclean.  It 
seems  to  me  that  nothing  wiU  avail  but  a  radical  change 
in  the  management  of  the  paper,  by  which  these  depart- 
ments are  abohshed,  and  the  business  of  advertising 
placed  on  a  perfectly  square  and  intelligent  basis.  .  .  . 
You  act  on  what  seem  to  you  sound  principles,  —  that 
I  do  not  dispute,  —  but  they  do  not  seem  so  to  me.  Now 
that  I  have  brought  myself  squarely  to  face  the  question 
which  I  have  tried  for  three  years  to  evade,  my  way  seems 
very  clear. 

It  ought  to  be  said  that  the  ideas  of  publishers  in 
general  were  less  clear,  upon  the  matter,  in  those  days 
than  they  are  in  these.  Most  reputable  periodicals  are 
careful,  nowadays,  to  make  a  clear  and  bold  distinc- 
tion between  reading-matter  and  advertisements.  The 
"Independent,"'  itself,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  is  scrupu- 
lously free,  to-day,  from  all  such  devices. 

Yet  signs  have  not  been  wanting,  within  the  past  ten 


236  RECOLLECTIONS 

years,  of  the  existence  of  subterranean  methods  by 
means  of  which  large  portions  of  the  press  are  subsidized 
for  the  misleading  of  the  people.  Beyond  a  question 
large  quantities  of  what  purports  to  be  reading-matter 
are  supplied  to  the  journals  of  the  country  by  interested 
parties,  and  paid  for  by  the  line.  Certain  great  corpora- 
tions pay  large  sums  of  money  for  influencing,  in  this 
manner,  public  opinion.  It  appeared,  not  long  ago,  in 
evidence  before  a  court,  that  a  certain  magazine,  which 
had  no  very  obvious  reason  for  existence,  but  which  had 
been  very  friendly  to  corporate  combinations,  had  been 
subsidized,  for  several  years,  by  a  large  corporation. 
There  are  certain  news  agencies  which  supply  country 
papers  with  news  or  New  York  or  Washington  letters, 
sometimes  gratuitously  and  always  at  very  low  figures ; 
the  matter  is  well  written,  and  is  eagerly  accepted  by  the 
lesser  journals,  but  it  is  cooked  to  suit  the  taste  of  the 
"Interests"  that  stand  behind  the  bureau  and  use  it  for 
the  creation  of  a  public  opinion  favorable  to  themselves. 
Many  persons  throughout  the  country  have  been  sur- 
prised at  receiving  month  after  month  a  popular  maga- 
zine for  which  they  had  not  subscribed ;  few  of  them, 
perhaps,  have  observed  the  appearance  in  it  of  a  series 
of  articles,  purporting  to  discuss  the  conditions  of  pub- 
lic service  companies  in  various  cities,  and  generally 
tending  to  cast  discredit  upon  municipal  ownership.  It 
ought  to  be  evident  to  the  readers  that  somebody, 
who  is  not  wholly  disinterested,  is  trying  to  educate 
them  on  this  subject,  and  is  using  this  magazine  for 
this  purpose. 
Such  are  some  of  the  methods  in  which  the  press  is 


NEWSPAPER  ETHICS  237 

now  being  used  by  the  money  power  to  poison  the 
springs  of  pubHc  opinion.  Often  when  the  innocent 
reader  supposes  himself  to  be  instructed  by  some  inde- 
pendent student  of  pubUc  affairs,  he  is  reading  matter 
which  is  furnished  by  some  interested  party,  and  which 
is  paid  for  at  advertising  rates.  Compared  with  these 
vast  schemes  for  deceiving  the  people,  the  disguised 
advertising  of  the  "  Independent "  in  the  olden  time  was 
a  venial  offense. 

Any  man  has  a  right  to  use  the  press  in  defending  his 
claims  or  promoting  his  interest,  provided  the  thing  is 
done  openly  and  without  deceit  or  concealment.  But 
when  a  man  or  a  corporation  enters  into  a  conspiracy 
with  a  newspaper  to  palm  off  upon  the  public  its  own 
special  plea  as  the  report  or  the  judgment  of  a  disin- 
terested investigator  —  paying  money  for  the  insertion 
of  such  matter  in  the  news  or  editorial  columns  of  the 
newspaper  —  the  man  who  pays  the  money  is  a  swin- 
dler, and  the  newspaper  that  accepts  it  is  a  prostitute. 

If  Mr.  Lawson  wishes  to  issue  his  financial  manifestoes 
in  the  form  of  advertisements,  that  is  perfectly  legiti- 
mate for  him  and  for  the  newspapers  which  print  them ; 
his  name  is  signed  to  his  statement,  and  every  reader 
knows  what  he  is  reading.  But  if  some  syndicate  inter- 
ested in  public  service  properties  buys  space  in  the 
newspapers  and  fills  it  with  its  own  statements  artfully 
prepared  for  the  promotion  of  its  own  interests,  letting 
it  appear  that  it  is  the  work  of  some  unprejudiced 
reporter  or  the  judgment  of  some  independent  student, 
the  deceit  thus  practiced  on  the  reading  pubhc  is  one 
of  the  gravest  offenses  against  modem  ci^ihzation.  The 


238  RECOLLECTIONS 

guilt  of  this  offense  is  shared  equally  by  the  newspaper 
and  the  advertiser. 

The  press  has  come  to  be  the  principal  agency  for  the 
creation  of  public  opinion.  The  welfare  of  the  common- 
wealth depends  upon  the  intelligence  and  soundness  of 
public  opinion.  The  sacredness  of  the  function  of  the 
press  is  therefore  obvious.  It  is  pledged,  by  all  that  is 
precious  in  our  national  life,  to  tell  the  truth ;  to  help 
the  people  to  see  things  as  they  are.  When  it  suffers 
itself  to  become  an  instrument  for  misleading  the  people, 
it  becomes  the  worst  of  our  public  enemies. 

It  was  my  own  strong  sense  of  the  sacredness  of  the 
newspaper  as  a  public  teacher,  and  of  the  grave  immoral- 
ity of  perverting  its  function  for  hire,  that  constrained 
me  to  give  up  my  work  upon  the  "Independent." 


CHAPTER  XVII 

BACK  TO  NEW  ENGLAND 

Sing  on!  bring  down,  O  lowland  river, 
The  joy  of  the  hills  to  the  waiting  sea; 

The  wealth  of  the  vales,  the  pomp  of  mountaina, 
The  breath  of  the  woodlands,  bear  with  thee. 

Into  thy  dutiful  life  of  uses 

Pour  the  music  and  weave  the  flowers; 

With  the  song  of  birds  and  bloom  of  meadows 
Lighten  and  gladden  thy  heart  and  ours. 

And  well  may  we  own  thy  hint  and  token 
Of  fairer  valleys  and  streams  than  these, 

Where  the  rivers  of  God  are  full  of  water. 
And  full  of  sap  are  His  healing  trees ! 

John  Greerdeaf  WhiUier. 

When  I  turned  my  steps  from  the  door  of  the  "Inde- 
pendent" office,  the  world  was  all  before  me.  There  did 
not  appear  to  be  any  promising  opening  in  journalism, 
and  the  pulpit  seemed  to  be  my  only  refuge.  Nor  was 
the  thought  of  returning  to  the  active  pastorate  an 
imwelcome  one ;  I  had  been  preaching,  most  of  the  time, 
during  my  editorial  service ;  two  of  the  smaller  churches 
in  Brooklj-n  I  had  served  for  periods  of  nearly  a  year 
each,  so  that  I  had  by  no  means  lost  contact  with  the  life 
of  the  churches.  Fortunately  I  was  not  left  long  in  sus- 
pense. The  North  Congregational  Cliurch  of  Springfield 
was  without  a  pastor;  I  had  several  friends  in  that 
church,  and  I  was  in\'ited  to  supply  its  pulpit  for  four 
Sundays.   The  invitation  was  most  welcome.   Spring- 


240  RECOLLECTIONS 

field  had  always  been  to  me  the  most  attractive  of  the 
New  England  cities ;  it  was  only  a  few  miles  from  my 
father's  old  home ;  Mount  Tom,  over  which  I  used  to  see 
the  sun  rise  from  my  grandfather's  house  in  Bedlam, 
was  in  full  view ;  the  lovely  Connecticut  valley  had  long 
held  me  by  an  enduring  charm.  My  dear  old  friend 
Bowles,  from  my  boyhood  my  critic  and  counselor,  was 
there  on  the  "Republican";  it  would  be  good  to  be 
within  hailing  distance  of  him. 

Of  the  church,  too,  I  had  known  something.  Dr. 
Holland  had  been  one  of  its  leading  members ;  it  was  in 
the  choir  gallery  of  this  church,  leading  its  quartette  in 
the  Sunday  worship,  that  I  had  caught  my  first  glimpse 
of  him.  He  was  now  living  in  New  York.  It  had  been 
a  church  of  progressive  temper,  and  its  ministers  had 
been,  for  the  most  part,  men  of  light  and  leading.  I  had 
preached  for  the  church,  a  few  times,  during  my  pastor- 
ate in  North  Adams,  and  did  not  come  into  its  pulpit 
wholly  a  stranger.  To  add  to  the  attraction  was  a  new 
church  edifice,  one  of  the  first  and  best  of  Henry  H. 
Richardson's  churches. 

Before  the  four  Sundays  of  my  occasional  engagement 
had  passed,  the  church  extended  to  me  a  call  to  become 
its  pastor,  so  that,  on  the  expiration  of  my  three 
months'  notice,  on  February  1,  1875,  I  found  my  home 
in  Springfield.  Thus  begins  nearly  eight  years  of  pas- 
toral life,  in  the  fairest  of  the  lesser  cities  of  the  land,  in 
the  midst  of  fresh  thought  and  stimulating  movement, 
with  delightful  ministerial  companionships,  with  plenty 
of  congenial  work  to  do,  and  with  new  roads  opening 
every  day  into  the  great  reahties. 


BACK  TO  NEW  ENGLAND  241 

Springfield  in  1875  had  a  population  of  about  thirty 
thousand;  it  had  five  or  six  Congregational  churches, 
among  them  the  old  First,  founded  in  1636  by  William 
Pynchon  and  his  brave  pioneers,  who  pushed  out  to  the 
Connecticut  valley  when  the  settlement  about  Massa- 
chusetts Bay  was  still  very  young.  The  name  of  Pyn- 
chon still  survives  in  the  locality,  and  the  tradition  of 
him  has  been  cherished  by  lovers  of  free  thought  in  all 
the  generations.  Like  most  educated  laymen  of  his  time, 
he  was  something  of  a  theologian ;  and  a  book  of  his, 
"The  Meritorious  Price  of  our  Redemption,"  made  no 
small  stir  in  those  early  days.  It  was  printed  in  England, 
and  some  of  the  Puritan  theologians  there,  falling  foul 
of  it  before  it  was  imported  to  this  country,  raised  such 
a  hue  and  cry  about  its  heresies,  that  the  "Great  and 
General  Court"  in  Boston  commanded  that  the  copies 
of  it  arriving  by  ship  from  England  be  seized  and  burned 
by  the  hangman  on  Boston  Common.  How  many  copies 
escaped  the  fire  I  do  not  know ;  only  two  or  three  are 
known  to  be  in  existence  to-day.  One  of  these  it  was 
once  my  pleasure  to  have  in  my  custody  for  a  few  days, 
and  the  perusal  of  it  was  a  revelation.  Tlie  tradition  had 
been  that  this  book  of  PjTichon's,  upon  the  Atonement, 
was  a  daring  denial  of  all  that  is  essential  in  substitu- 
tionary theology ;  instead  of  that,  its  orthodoxy  is  rock- 
ribbed  and  triple-plated ;  there  is  no  Calvinistic  strong- 
hold in  the  land  in  which  its  doctrine  would  not  to-day 
be  deemed  archaic.  The  head  and  front  of  Pynchon's 
offending  seems  to  have  been  his  denial  that  Christ  as 
our  substitute  actually  suffered  the  pains  of  hell  in  his 
soul,  including  the  pangs  of  remorse.  That  he  positively 


242  RECOLLECTIONS 

refused  to  believe ;  that  refusal  made  him  a  heretic,  and 
caused  the  burning  of  his  book  on  Boston  Common. 
There  was  a  hot  controversy  about  it  on  both  sides  of  the 
sea.  Pynchon  was  repeatedly  cited  to  answer  for  his 
heresies  before  the  ministers  of  Boston,  but  he  appears 
to  have  disregarded  the  summons.  So  fierce,  however, 
was  the  censure  to  which  he  was  exposed  that,  in  1652, 
he  returned  to  England,  leaving  to  his  children  his 
estates  and  responsibilities  in  the  Connecticut  valley. 
It  is  a  curious  illustration  of  the  manner  in  which  the 
heresy  of  one  day  becomes  the  orthodoxy  of  the  next. 
But  the  tradition  of  Pjuchon,  the  founder  of  Springfield, 
as  that  of  a  man  in  advance  of  his  day,  who  was  unjustly 
persecuted  by  his  contemporaries,  may  have  had  some 
tendency  to  moderate  the  theological  climate  and  en- 
courage toleration  in  that  neighborhood. 

Springfield  was  the  natural  capital  of  the  four  west- 
em  counties  of  Massachusetts,  and  the  cluster  of  large 
towns  by  which  it  was  surrounded,  Chicopee,  Holyoke, 
Northampton,  and  Westfield,  with  Hartford,  the  cap- 
ital of  Connecticut,  only  half  an  hour  distant  on  the 
south,  made  it  a  centre  of  considerable  influence.  ^Vhat 
counted  for  much  in  this  respect  was  the  Springfield 
"  Republican, ' '  a  newspaper  whose  weight  and  force  as  an 
organ  of  public  opinion  has  long  been  wholly  out  of  pro- 
portion to  the  size  of  the  community  in  which  it  circu- 
lates. It  is  doubtful  whether  the  field  of  any  newspaper 
was  ever  better  cultivated  than  this  of  the  Springfield 
"Repubhcan."  In  every  hamlet  of  these  four  western 
counties  a  correspondent  gathered  up  the  local  news  and 
forwarded  it  to  Springfield,  and  these  reports,  generally 


BACK  TO  NEW  ENGLAND  243 

crude,  were  skillfully  edited  and  condensed  in  the  office, 
so  that  a  picture  of  the  life  of  western  Massachusetts, 
complete  in  its  detail,  was  spread  before  the  readers  of 
the  "Republican"  every  morning.  By  this  means  a 
community  of  interest  and  feeling  was  cultivated;  in 
matters  social  and  poUtical  the  people  could  cooperate 
inteUigently.  Not  that  the  lead  of  the  "Repubhcan" 
was  always  followed  in  such  matters;  often  there  was 
wide  dissent  from  its  positions,  and  loud  complaint 
against  the  excesses  of  its  independency ;  but  the  people 
had  come  to  rely  upon  its  truthfulness  and  its  courage, 
and  its  influence  was  felt  in  every  part  of  its  field. 

How  pervasive  and  salutary  this  influence  has  been, 
the  people  of  that  community  may  not  fully  realize. 
Over  all  their  affairs  this  guardian  has  always  been 
watching  sleeplessly;  no  conspiracy  against  the  pub- 
lic welfare  could  escape  its  \igilance,  and  no  corrupt 
consideration  could  muzzle  its  utterance.  Municipal  or 
political  irregularities  of  all  sorts  were  sure  to  be  dis- 
covered and  dragged  into  the  light ;  graft  and  extrava- 
gance were  held  in  check  by  its  presence.  I  think  that 
the  municipalities  of  western  Massachusetts  will  be 
found  to  be  singularly  free  from  civic  and  financial 
abuses.  Springfield  has  expended  money  freely  for  pub- 
lic buildings  and  improvements,  but  its  debt  is  small,  its 
tax  rate  is  low,  and  no  scandals  that  I  remember  have 
appeared  in  its  City  Hall.  The  capitalization  of  its  pub- 
lic service  companies  has  always  been  very  moderate  — 
at  least  this  was  so  until  a  recent  day ;  what  may  have 
happened  since  the  great  New  England  railroad  mono- 
poly has  been  absorbing  the  electric  lines  of  the  cities,  I 


244  RECOLLECTIONS 

do  not  know.  But  for  all  this  social  and  civic  health  and 
vigor  western  Massachusetts  is  indebted,  in  no  small 
degree,  to  the  Springfield  "Republican."  It  is  not,  of 
course,  the  only  influence ;  other  good  newspapers  and 
other  moral  agencies  have  been  at  work  in  this  field,  but 
there  has  been  no  other  influence  so  salutary  and  so 
persistent  as  that  of  this  leading  newspaper.  If  news- 
papers of  the  type  of  the  Springfield  "RepubHcan" 
could  be  planted  all  over  this  country  at  intervals  of 
not  more  than  one  hundred  miles,  the  foundation  would 
be  laid  for  a  great  improvement  in  social  and  political 
morahty. 

For  all  this  large  result  the  community  was  mainly 
indebted  to  Samuel  Bowles.  He  was  the  second  editor 
of  the  name.  The  "  Weekly  Republican  "  was  founded 
by  his  father,  in  1824 ;  it  was  changed  to  a  daily,  in  1844, 
at  the  urgent  instance  of  the  younger  Samuel,  who  was 
then  but  eighteen  years  old ;  the  upbuilding  and  develop- 
ment of  this  paper  had  been  his  life-work.  He  had  had 
good  collaborators,  chief  of  whom  was  Dr.  Holland, 
whose  wholesome  and  homely  social  essays  had  added 
greatly  to  the  popularity  of  the  journal.  But  the  life 
and  soul  of  the  "Repubhcan"  had  always  been  Samuel 
Bowles.  For  thirty  years  he  had  been  pouring  all  his 
energies  into  it,  and  better  than  most  men  he  had 
worked  out  his  ideals.  On  the  literary  side  they  were 
distinct  and  sensible.  He  wanted  no  fine  writing,  but 
the  news  should  be  told  and  the  comment  presented  in 
clear,  crisp,  idiomatic  English,  with  no  surplus  verbiage. 
The  paper  must  tell  the  truth ;  correspondents  were  en- 
couraged to  state  the  thing  as  it  appeared  to  them ;  not 


BACK  TO  NEW  ENGL.\ND  245 

seldom  the  editorial  columns  and  the  correspondence 
colunms  were  openly  at  war.  Readers  were  made  sure 
that  the  facts  would  not  be  concealed  from  them,  and 
that  they  were  likely  to  get  all  sides  of  a  controverted 
question.  Over  the  staff  of  reporters  and  editors  the 
influence  of  the  chief  was  potent.  "He  was  a  man,"  says 
one  of  his  old  associates,  "of  notable  presence,  tall, 
spare,  nervous,  with  keen  cavalier  face,  full  browTi  beard 
and  dark  brown  hair  that  was  neither  of  Indian  stiff- 
ness nor  of  effeminate  curl,  but  between  the  two ;  a  rich 
brown-red  complexion,  a  strong  nose,  and  brilliant  and 
di\ining  eyes  before  which  no  falsehood  could  stand. 
...  He  was  often  severe,  and  sometimes  the  young 
apprentice  would  feel  that  he  was  cruel;  but  he  was 
as  generous  in  praise  as  stem  in  censure,  and  a  word 
of  approval  from  the  chief  coupled  with  one  of  his 
wonderful  smiles  was  worth  a  hundred  flatteries  beside. 
The  personal  aura  which  surrounded  him  in  social  in- 
tercourse was  nowhere  more  potent  than  among  the 
young  men  in  the  office,  when  he  criticised  and  inspired 
them." 

When  I  first  knew  Mr.  Bowles,  during  my  college  days, 
and  afterward  in  North  Adams,  he  was  very  modest 
about  his  ability  as  a  writer.  Of  the  management  of  a 
newspaper  he  knew  that  he  was  master,  but  he  was  diffi- 
dent respecting  his  literary  skill.  Indeed,  his  earlier 
writing  was  by  no  means  brilliant ;  it  was  clear,  intelli- 
gent, businesslike,  but  it  had  Httle  sparkle  or  color.  AJI 
this  came  to  him  late  in  Ufe.  During  the  last  ten  years 
he  developed  a  degree  of  skill  as  a  writer  which  was  a 
surprise  to  those  who  knew  him  in  his  earlier  days.  The 


246  RECOLLECTIONS 

blossoming  of  his  art  seems  to  have  come  on  the  occa- 
sion of  his  visit  to  CaHfornia,  in  1865 ;  the  letters  which 
he  wrote  to  the  ''Repubhcan"  on  that  journey,  which 
are  collected  in  his  volume  ''Across  the  Continent,"  are 
full  of  piquant,  fresh,  poetical  English.  And  the  letters 
of  all  this  period,  which  are  gathered  up  in  Mr,  Mer- 
riam's  admirable  biography,  are  delightful  examples  of 
the  epistolary  art. 

When  I  took  up  my  home  in  Springfield  in  1875,  Mr. 
Bowles  was  fifty-one  years  of  age,  and  ought  to  have  had 
twenty-five  years  of  good  work  ahead  of  him,  but  it  was 
easy  to  see  that  his  work  was  nearly  done ;  the  symp- 
toms of  nervous  breakdown  were  manifest.  I  saw  him 
not  often ;  his  strength  was  consumed  by  his  daily  du- 
ties, and  he  had  not  much  left  for  social  pleasures.  He 
had  been  most  cordial  in  his  appreciation  of  my  jour- 
nalistic experience.  "I  hope,"  he  had  written  me  three 
months  before,  "you  will  not  leave  journalism.  The  har- 
vest is  large  and  the  laborers  are  few.  It  is  bigger  than 
the  pulpit.  I  won't  be  so  conceited  as  to  say  that  it  is 
better."  But  when  I  became,  so  to  speak,  a  member  of 
his  parish  once  more,  he  gave  me  a  warm  welcome,  and 
showed  a  kindly  interest  in  my  work.  Now  and  then  I 
had  the  honor  of  a  seat  at  his  table,  at  those  rather  in- 
formal dinner  parties  which  he  sometimes  gave  to  a  few 
gentlemen,  when  guests  of  distinction  were  visiting  him. 
Over  all  the  questions  of  national  politics  we  used  to 
talk  freely  when  we  met ;  in  the  Hayes-Tilden  campaign 
he  was  disposed  to  favor  Tilden,  but  he  asked  me  to  give 
the  "Republican"  my  reasons  for  the  opposite  prefer- 
ence, and  printed  it  conspicuously,  with  a  cordial  word, 


BACK  TO  NEW  ENGLAND  247 

on  the  editorial  page.  His  fear  was  that  Hayes  was  a 
man  of  putty,  and  could  be  manipulated  by  the  worst 
elements  of  the  Republican  Party;  he  was  sure,  after 
Hayes  was  confirmed  in  his  seat,  that  the  Cabinet  would 
be  composed  of  rotten  timber.  About  this  he  was  quite 
pessimistic.  On  the  day  when  the  Cabinet  was  an- 
nounced, I  saw  the  bulletin,  with  the  names  of  Evarts 
and  Schurz  and  Sherman  and  Devens,  —  the  strongest 
Cabinet  for  many  years,  and  nobody  representing  the 
reactionary  wing  of  the  party, — and  I  climbed  to  the 
editorial  rooms  of  the  "RepubHcan."  "How  now?"  I 
demanded.  "Well,"  he  said,  "it's  too  good  to  believe. 
I  did  n't  think  they  would  let  him  do  it.  The  fact  is, 
parson,  there's  one  element  these  fellows  never  count 
on,  and  that  is  God."  It  was  no  irreverence ;  it  was 
his  way  of  saying  that  the  machinations  of  the  politi- 
cians had  been  divinely  overruled.  He  was  very  chary 
of  expressions  like  that,  but  I  think  that  he  meant  it, 
that  day. 

Several  years  before  his  death  they  made  him  a 
Trustee  of  Amherst  College.  Free  lance  in  theology  as 
he  notoriously  was,  his  appointment  as  custodian  of 
the  interests  of  that  very  conservative  institution  was 
regarded  as  somewhat  extraordinary.  But  he  proved  to 
be  a  most  valuable  member  of  the  Board,  nor  were  his 
reUgious  views  ever  suffered  to  embarrass,  in  any  way, 
the  administration.  One  day  I  expressed  to  him  my 
gratification  at  the  appointment,  and  jocularly  ventured 
the  hope  that  he  might  do  something  to  brace  up  the 
orthodoxy  of  the  institution.  "Well,  no,  parson,"  he 
said ;  "I  don't  go  much  on  theology ;  but  now  and  then 


248  RECOLLECTIONS 

a  question  of  morals  in  the  financial  management  comes 
up,  and  then  I  shine  out !" 

During  the  last  year  of  his  life  he  stirred  up  the  people 
of  Springfield  to  undertake  a  more  efficient  organization 
of  their  local  charities.  The  "Republican,"  at  his  insti- 
gation, kept  the  matter  before  the  public  until  a  meeting 
was  called  and  steps  were  taken  to  form  an  association 
for  the  care  of  the  poor.  It  was  my  privilege  to  prepare 
the  report  and  to  draft  the  form  of  organization  by 
which  the  Union  Relief  Association  of  Springfield  was 
constituted,  in  which  service  I  was  brought  into  frequent 
conferences  with  Mr.  Bowles.  It  was  the  last  opportu- 
nity I  had  of  talking  much  wdth  him,  and  I  gratefully 
treasure  the  memory  of  those  interviews.  As  soon  as 
the  Association  was  organized,  he  himself  took  out  a 
subscription  paper,  and  raised  the  money  necessary  for 
putting  the  machinery  into  operation.  It  was  almost 
his  last  public  service. 

Six  months  later  came  the  fatal  stroke  which  pros- 
trated him,  and  left  him  but  a  few  weeks  of  lingering 
suffering.  I  saw  him  once,  after  that ;  he  asked  for 
me.  The  great  brown  eyes  were  full  of  wistful  friend- 
liness ;  there  were  a  few  cheerful  and  courageous  words. 
It  was  not  many  days  later  that  we  carried  him  away 
to  his  resting-place  in  the  beautiful  cemetery,  near  his 
home. 

"\r\Tien  my  work  began  in  Springfield,  in  the  spring  of 
1875,  the  industries  of  the  country  had  not  yet  recovered 
from  the  collapse  of  1873.  It  was  a  season  of  industrial 
depression;  large  numbers  of  men  were  out  of  work,  and 


BACK  TO  NEW  ENGLAND  249 

the  outlook  for  a  multitude  of  industrious  and  capable 
men  was  gloomy.  Meetings  of  the  unemployed  were 
held  in  the  Police  Court  room  at  the  City  Hall,  and  vari- 
ous schemes  were  suggested  by  which  the  city  might 
offer  relief  to  those  in  want.  Those  who  attended  these 
meetings  were  not,  as  a  rule,  the  soberest  and  most 
capable  workingmen,  but  the  more  restless  and  turbu- 
lent of  the  laboring  class.  Their  leader  was  an  Irishman, 
of  an  impulsive  and  reckless  temper,  whose  talk  to  the 
crowd  had  sometimes  been  of  an  inflammatory  charac- 
ter. One  day  he  came  to  me  with  an  urgent  request  that 
I  go  down  to  the  meeting  that  night,  and  speak  to  the 
multitude.  I  accepted  the  invitation,  and  found  myself 
confronted  with  a  company  of  laborers  who  were  evi- 
dently not  in  a  complacent  mood.  What  I  had  to  say  to 
them  did  not  fully  harmonize  with  their  ruling  idea,  for 
I  expressed  doubt  as  to  whetlier  it  would  l3e  possible  for 
the  city  to  furnisli  work  for  them,  and  exliorted  tiicm  to 
be  ready  to  do  any  kind  of  work  that  might  be  offered, 
at  merely  nominal  wages,  rather  than  beg  or  be  idle.  It 
was  not,  as  I  am  able  now  to  recall  it,  a  speech  which 
was  calculated  to  conciliate  that  audience ;  I  fear  it  did 
not  recognize  so  clearly  as  it  ought  to  have  done  the 
responsibility  of  the  community  for  the  relief  of  such 
conditions.  I  am  sure  that  I  should  put  the  case  a 
little  differently  to-day,  if  I  were  speaking  to  such  a 
company. 

The  men  listened  to  me,  however,  respectfull}^  and  at 
the  close  of  my  address  I  said  to  them :  "  I  have  told  you 
what  I  think  is  the  sensible  thing  for  you  to  do ;  next 
Sunday  night  I  am  going  to  talk  to  your  employers,  to 


250  RECOLLECTIONS 

the  people  who  are  in  the  habit  of  hiring  labor,  and  I 
wish  you  would  come  to  the  church  and  hear  what  I 
shall  say  to  them."  Quite  a  number  of  them  accepted 
the  in\'itation.  In  that  sermon  I  urged  upon  m}^  congre- 
gation the  duty  of  furnishing  work,  wherever  it  was  pos- 
sible, to  the  unemployed ;  I  suggested  that  building  and 
repairing  could  be  very  cheaply  done,  in  the  existing 
conditions  of  the  labor  market ;  and  that  those  who  had 
any  surplus  funds  could  probably  use  them  produc- 
tively, just  then,  in  the  employment  of  labor.  That  ser- 
mon was  one  of  the  most  effective  I  ever  preached  •,  it 
started  two  or  three  of  my  parishioners  to  building 
houses ;  it  set  -quite  a  number  of  people  to  repairing 
and  remodeUng  their  premises ;  it  resulted  in  organizing 
one  or  two  small  businesses  which  gave  employment  to 
several  people.  If  one  could  only  get  such  results  as 
these  quite  frequently,  preaching  would  seem  to  be 
better  worth  while. 

Those  of  the  workingmen  who  heard  what  I  had  to 
say  to  the  employing  class  seemed  to  be  satisfied  that 
the  pulpit  was  not  prejudiced  against  them,  and  my 
friend,  the  Irish  agitator,  continued,  after  that  time, 
regularly  to  attend  my  church,  with  which  he  afterward 
united,  becoming  one  of  my  most  loyal  parishioners. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  I  began  the  series  of  lec- 
tures to  "Workingmen  and  their  Employers,"  which 
were  published,  in  1876,  in  a  volume  with  that  title.  The 
field  was  one  into  which  the  pulpit  had  not  often  ven- 
tured, and  my  work  had  to  be  largely  that  of  a  pioneer. 
But  it  was  becoming  increasingly  evident  that  a  great 
social  problem  was  thus  forcing  itself  upon  the  thought 


BACK  TO  NEW  ENGLAND  251 

of  the  world, — a  problem  in  the  solution  of  which  the 
Christian  church  must  have  a  large  concern.  Primarily 
it  must  be  a  question  of  conduct,  a  question  concerning 
the  relations  of  man  to  man,  and  it  is  the  primary  busi- 
ness of  Christianity  to  define  and  regulate  these  rela- 
tions. The  application  of  the  Christian  law  to  industrial 
society  would,  it  seemed  to  me,  solve  this  problem,  and 
the  church  ought  to  know  how  to  apply  it. 

Against  this  assumption  strenuous  objection  was 
raised  in  those  days,  and  the  protest  is  still  heard.  It 
was  said  that  the  minister  has  no  business  to  bring 
questions  of  this  kind  into  the  pulpit ;  that  his  concern  is 
with  spiritual  interests,  and  not  with  secular;  that  his 
function  is  the  saving  of  souls  and  not  the  regulation  of 
business.  It  was  urged  that  if  men  are  only  "saved," 
all  questions  of  this  nature  will  solve  themselves;  that 
right  relations  will  necessarily  be  established  between 
social  classes. 

In  dealing  with  this  objection,  it  was  only  too  appar- 
ent that  the  facts  did  not  support  it.  It  was  by  no 
means  true  that  those  who,  in  the  judgment  of  charity, 
were  "saved  "  were  estabHshing  right  relations  between 
themselves  and  those  with  whom  they  were  associated 
in  industry.  Many  of  them  were  practicing  injustice  and 
cruelty,  without  any  sense  of  the  evil  of  their  conduct. 
They  were  nearly  all  assuming  that  the  Christian  rule  of 
life  had  no  application  to  business ;  that  the  law  of  sup- 
ply and  demand  was  the  only  law  which,  in  the  world  of 
exchanges,  they  w^ere  bound  to  respect.  If  a  man  was 
converted  and  joined  the  church,  it  did  not  occur  to  him 
that  that  fact  had  any  relation  to  the  management  of 


252  RECOLLECTIONS 

his  mill  or  his  factory.  Business  was  business  and  reli- 
gion was  religion ;  the  two  areas  were  not  coterminous, 
they  might  be  mutually  exclusive.  Nothing  was  more 
needed  in  the  church  than  the  enforcement  upon  the 
consciences  of  men  of  the  truth  that  the  Christian  law 
covers  every  relation  of  life,  and  the  distinct  and  thor- 
oughgoing application  of  that  law  to  the  common  af- 
fairs of  men. 

There  were  those  who  urged  the  materialistic  doctrine 
that  all  these  economic  questions  are  outside  the  realm 
of  morals;  that  economic  forces  are  beyond  the  reach 
of  moral  causes;  that  nothing  can  be  done  by  human 
agency  to  mitigate  their  severities  or  to  modify  their 
action.  All  this  appeared  to  me  profoundly  and  mis- 
chievously untrue ;  it  seemed  to  involve  a  philosophy 
of  history  which  was  openly  at  war  with  the  facts  of 
history,  and  it  was  the  denial  of  all  that  is  heroic  and 
inspiring  in  human  endeavor. 

The  most  common  objection  to  the  discussion  of  such 
topics  in  the  pulpit  was,  however,  the  assertion  that  the 
minister  was  not  competent  to  deal  with  them.  Con- 
cerning economic  questions  and  business  questions  he 
was  not  apt  to  have  any  adequate  knowledge,  and  there- 
fore he  had  better  let  them  alone.  That  objection  largely 
prevails,  until  this  hour.  A  good  proportion  of  our 
ministers  avoid  all  reference  to  the  matters  in  dispute 
between  workingmen  and  their  employers,  and  all  the 
great  issues  arising  in  industrial  society,  because,  they 
say,  they  have  not  the  necessary  information  and  tech- 
nical skill  to  handle  them  satisfactorily. 

It  is  worth  while  candidly  to  scrutinize  this  plea. 


BACK  TO  NEW  ENGLAND  253 

Doubtless,  for  many  of  us,  it  is  the  easiest  way  to  dis- 
pose of  the  matter.  If  we  can  get  a  dispensation  from 
our  consciences  to  evade  this  subject,  we  shall  keep  out 
of  a  thorny  road.  Doubtless,  too,  we  may  be  aware  that 
there  are  powerful  influences  which  join  to  urge  upon  us 
this  policy  of  evasion.  But  it  is  a  fair  question  whether 
this  is  a  subject  which  we  can  afford  to  ignore. 

Let  us  say  that  our  business  is  saving  souls.  Souls  are 
men.  How  to  save  men,  their  manhood,  their  character, 
—  that  is  our  chief  problem.  Is  there  any  other  realm 
in  which  character,  manhood,  is  more  rapidly  and  more 
inevitably  made  or  lost,  than  this  realm  of  industry? 
Is  the  man  saved,  who,  in  his  dealings  '^ith  his  employee, 
or  his  employer,  can  habitually  seek  his  own  aggrandize- 
ment at  the  cost  of  the  other?  Is  not  the  selfishness 
which  is  expected  to  rule  in  all  this  department  of  life 
the  exact  antithesis  of  Christian  moraUty  ?  Is  there  any- 
thing else  from  which  men  need  more  to  be  saved  than 
from  the  habits  of  thought  and  action  which  prevail  in 
the  places  where  "business  is  business"?  Are  we  really 
"saving  souls,"  when  we  permit  men  like  the  packing- 
house proprietors  and  the  insurance  wreckers  to  sit 
comfortably  in  our  pews  and  enjoy  our  ministrations? 
I  fear  that  some  of  these  men  may  have  grave  accu- 
sations to  bring  against  us,  one  of  these  days,  for 
ha\ing  failed  to  tell  them  the  truth  about  their  own 
conduct. 

In  fact,  there  is  reason  for  the  belief  that  in  these  very 
questions  respecting  the  regulation  of  our  industries, 
the  Christian  church  is  facing  to-day  its  crucial  test.  If 
it  can  meet  these  questions  frankly  and  bravely,  if  it 


254  RECOLLECTIONS 

can  solve  them  successfully,  its  future  is  secure :  it  will 
have  won  its  right  to  the  moral  leadership  of  society. 
If  it  fails  in  this,  —  if  this  tremendous  problem  is  worked 
out  without  its  aid,  —  the  world  is  likely  to  have  very 
little  use  for  it  in  the  generations  to  come.  The  church 
is  in  the  world  to  save  the  world ;  if  it  lacks  the  power 
to  do  this,  and  industrial  society  plunges  into  chaos, 
are  there  any  ecclesiastics  infatuated  enough  to  beUeve 
that  the  church  can  save  itself  out  of  that  wreck?  No ; 
it  must  save  society,  or  go  to  ruin  with  it. 

The  plea  of  the  rehgious  teachers  that  they  are  in- 
competent to  deal  with  social  questions  is,  therefore,  a 
fearful  self-accusation.  They  have  no  right  to  be  incom- 
petent. Whatever  else  they  are  ignorant  of,  they  must 
not  be  ignorant  respecting  matters  which  concern  the 
very  life  of  the  organization  they  represent.  If  there 
are  any  subjects  on  which  they  are  bound  to  have  clear 
ideas  and  sound  convictions,  they  are  these  subjects 
w^hich  concern  the  relations  of  men  in  industrial  society. 
Here  is  the  field  on  which  the  battle  of  Gog  and  Magog 
is  being  fought  out  to-day.  Shall  the  teacher  of  rehgion 
confess  that  in  the  arena  where  character  is  mainly 
won  or  lost,  where  the  life  of  the  church  is  at  stake, 
where  the  destiny  of  the  nation  is  trembling  in  the  bal- 
ance, he  is  unfit  for  any  efficient  service  ?  It  is  as  if  a 
physician  should  declare  that  he  would  only  prescribe 
for  nettle  rash  and  chicken-pox  and  like  disorders,  but 
that  he  declined  to  deal  with  typhoid  or  diphtheria  or 
tuberculosis  or  any  of  the  deadly  diseases.  The  services 
of  such  a  physician  would  not  be  in  great  demand. 

The  fact  is  that  the  application  of  the  Christian  law  to 


BACK  TO  NEW  ENGLAND  255 

social  questions  is  not  a  recondite  matter.  Many  of  the 
abstruse  questions  of  metaphysical  theology  with  which 
all  ministers  are  expected  to  be  famiUar  are  mastered 
with  much  more  difficulty.  The  di\inity  schools  have 
no  business  on  their  hands  so  urgent  as  the  instruction 
of  their  students  in  the  first  principles  of  the  Christian 
social  order.  It  is  far  more  important  that  young  minis- 
ters should  understand  how  men  ought  to  live  together 
in  this  generation  than  it  is  that  they  should  be  famil- 
iar with  the  Gnostic  philosophy  of  the  second  century, 
or  the  Supralapsarian  theories.  To  some  extent  the 
divinity  schools  are  now  seeking  to  meet  this  demand. 
But  those  ministers  who  had  no  such  advantages  during 
their  professional  studies  may  easily  inform  themselves 
upon  all  the  more  important  aspects  of  the  social  ques- 
tion. And  the  plea  of  incompetency  is  one  which  no 
minister,  -with  a  due  sense  of  the  position  he  holds,  and 
of  the  responsibility  resting  on  him,  ought  to  tliink  of 
making. 

It  was  a  conviction  of  the  truth  which  I  have  been 
trying  to  express  which  prompted  me,  in  the  autumn  of 
1875,  to  prepare  that  course  of  Sunday  evening  lectures 
to  "  Workingmen  and  their  Employers,"  of  which  I  have 
spoken.  It  has  been  many  years  since  I  looked  into 
that  old  volume,  and  I  have  found  some  interest  in 
glancing  through  it.  It  is  not  a  profound  discussion ;  in 
fact,  it  did  not  aim  at  profundity;  it  was  meant  for  the 
average  mechanic.  It  is  by  no  means  a  radical  utterance. 
I  remember  that  some  positions  were  called  in  question 
by  some  of  my  parishioners,  but  it  is  difficult  to-day  to 
imderstand  how  they  could  have  found  fault  with  ideas 


256  RECOLLECTIONS 

so  obvious.  The  attitude  of  the  discussion  toward  labor 
unions  is  not  quite  so  sympathetic  as  it  ought  to  have 
been.  The  right  of  the  men  to  organize  for  their  own  pro- 
tection is,  indeed,  maintained.  "They  have  a  perfect 
right  to  deHberate  together  concerning  the  wages  they 
are  receiving,  and  to  unite  in  refusing  to  work  unless 
their  wages  are  increased.  The  law  gives  to  capital  an 
immense  advantage  in  permitting  its  consolidation  in 
great  centralized  corporations;  and  neither  law  nor 
justice  can  forbid  laborers  to  combine,  in  order  to  pro- 
tect themselves  against  the  encroachments  of  capital, 
so  long  as  they  abstain  from  the  use  of  violence,  and 
rely  upon  reason  and  moral  influence."  I  am  glad  to 
find  that  statement.  Probably  that  was  one  of  the  posi- 
tions to  which  my  parishioners  objected.  On  the  whole, 
however,  the  treatment  of  the  unions  is  critical  rather 
than  cordial;  the  evils  which  they  harbor  are  magni- 
fied; the  higher  purposes  they  serve  are  imperfectly 
recognized.  ''I  have  no  doubt  "  —  thus  it  is  written  — 
"that  such  combinations  of  laborers  are  often  unwise 
and  unprofitable ;  that,  as  a  general  thing,  they  result 
in  more  loss  than  gain  to  the  laboring  classes."  That 
was  a  narrow  estimate;  it  rested  on  imperfect  know- 
ledge. In  various  ways  I  find  these  old  lectures  some- 
what lacking  in  comprehension. 

The  principal  suggestion  in  the  way  of  social  recon- 
struction is  that  of  cooperation,  which  is  urged,  with 
much  confidence,  as  a  method  of  putting  an  end  to  in- 
dustrial strife.  What  John  Stuart  Mill  and  John  Eliot 
Cairnes  had  written  about  this  was  quoted,  and  the 
large  success  of  the  Rochdale  Experiment  in  England 


BACK  TO  NEW  ENGLAND  257 

was  appealed  to ;  it  was  also  suggested  that  a  stepping- 
stone  to  cooperation  might  be  found  in  industrial  part- 
nership, "by  which  the  work-people  in  a  manufacturing 
establishment  are  given  an  interest  in  the  business ;  and, 
in  addition  to  their  wages,  a  stipulated  portion  of  the 
profits  is  di\'ided  among  them  at  the  close  of  every  year, 
in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  their  earnings."  But  the 
fact  was  insisted  on  that  all  these  methods  must  draw 
their  force  from  Christian  motives.  "Let  no  one  fail  to 
see  that  cooperation  is  nothing  more  than  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  essential  factors  of  industry  according  to 
the  Christian  rule  —  'we  being  many  are  one  body  in 
Christ,  and  every  one  members  one  of  another.'  It  is 
capital  and  labor  adjusting  themselves  to  the  form  of 
Christianity ;  and,  like  every  other  outward  symbol,  is 
a  false,  deceitful  show,  a  dead  form,  unless  filled  with 
the  living  spirit  of  Christianity  itself." 

"Workingmcn  and  their  Employers"  is  not  an  im- 
portant book;  I  have  been  quite  resigned,  for  many 
years,  to  the  fact  that  it  is  out  of  print ;  but  it  was  a 
serious  attempt,  made  at  an  early  day,  to  apply  Chris- 
tian principles  to  the  solution  of  the  social  question.  I 
am  not  proud  of  the  achievement,  but  I  am  not  sorry 
that  I  made  the  endeavor. 

Another  little  book  was  published  in  this  Centennial 
year,  —  six  short  chapters  of  counsel  to  those  contem- 
plating the  religious  Ufe,  under  the  title  "Being  a  Chris- 
tian :  Whsit  it  Means,  and  How  to  Begin."  I  have  ex- 
plained on  earlier  pages  of  this  story  how  I  came  to 
write  this  book.  It  was  an  attempt  to  make  plain  the 
way  of  Christian  discipleship,  which,  before  my  o^ti 


258  RECOLLECTIONS 

feet,  had  been  made  so  obscure  and  difficult ;  and  the 
favor  with  which  it  was  received  was  very  gratifying. 
It  has  had  a  larger  circulation  than  any  other  of  my 
books,  with  one  exception ;  and  I  have  been  comforted 
in  knowing  that  out  of  the  perplexities  of  my  boy- 
hood, help  has  come  to  many  who  were  seeking  the 
way  of  life. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

HERESY  HUNTING 

Opinion,  let  me  alone;  I  am  not  thine. 
Prim  Creed,  with  categoric  point,  forbear 

To  feature  me  my  Lord  by  rule  and  line. 
Thou  canst  not  measure  Mistress  Nature's  law, 

Not  one  sweet  inch:  nay,  if  thy  eight  is  sharp, 

Wouldst  count  the  strings  upon  an  angel's  harp? 
Forbear,  forbear. 

I  would  thou  leftst  me  free,  to  live  with  love, 
And  faith,  that  through  the  love  of  love  doth  find 

My  Lord's  dear  presence  in  the  stars  above, 
The  clods  below,  the  flesh  without,  the  mind 
Within,  the  bread,  the  tear,  the  smile. 
Opinion,  damned  Intriguer,  gray  with  guile, 
Let  me  alone. 

Sidney  Lanier. 

It  was  during  the  earlier  years  of  my  Springfield  pas- 
torate that  the  question  respecting  the  inerrancy  of  the 
Bible  began  to  trouble  the  mind  of  the  churches.  It  was 
knowTi,  to  begin  with,  that  a  company  of  learned  men 
were  meeting  monthly  in  the  Jerusalem  Chamber  of 
Westminster  Abbey  in  London,  for  the  re\'ision  of  the 
received  version  of  the  Bible,  and  that  certain  eminent 
American  scholars  were  cooperating  in  this  revision. 
This  was,  in  itself,  to  many,  a  disturbing  suggestion. 
Revision  imj)lied  change,  and  change,  whether  of  word 
or  phrase,  in  the  language  of  the  Bible,  could  be  nothing 
less  than  sacrilege.  It  was  known  to  some  that  consider- 
able critical  study  had  been  bestowed  upon  the  Bible, 


260  RECOLLECTIONS 

of  late  years,  by  German  scholars,  but,  up  to  this  time, 
very  little  was  known  in  the  churches,  or  even  in  the 
theological  seminaries  of  this  country,  of  the  results 
of  this  study.  Theodore  Parker  translated,  in  the  forties, 
De  Wette's  monumental  "Introduction  to  the  Old  Tes- 
tament," but  very  few  copies  were  sold ;  Parker's  name 
on  the  title-page  was  the  red  signal  of  infection ;  not 
many  of  those  who  regarded  their  reputations  would 
buy  a  book  about  the  Bible  for  which  he  stood  sponsor. 
Now  and  then  one  might  hear  from  the  pulpits  sharp 
monitory  words  about  the  "German  neologists,"  but 
just  what  their  innovations  might  be,  there  was  no  way 
of  finding  out. 

Gradually,  however,  the  light  that  was  shining  all 
about  us  found  its  way  through  our  shutters.  In  news- 
papers and  magazines,  and  in  an  occasional  heretical 
book,  statements  of  fact  appeared  which  arrested  the 
attention  of  thoughtful  men.  There  were  even  Biblical 
commentaries  which  ventured  to  call  attention  to  inter- 
polated verses  and  doubtful  passages.  It  began  to  be 
e\ident  to  some  that  the  doctrine  of  inerrancy  had  been 
overworked ;  that  there  was  need  of  the  application  of 
critical  study  to  the  sacred  Scriptures.  Yet  after  this 
fact  began  to  be  plain  to  students  and  teachers,  there 
was  still  great  timidity  in  admitting  so  much  in  the 
hearing  of  the  public.  I  remember  sitting  at  table,  at  the 
Massasoit  House  in  Springfield,  in  1875,  with  a  score  of 
intelHgent  Congregational  clergjTnen,  when  the  question 
arose  whether  it  would  be  judicious  to  tell  the  people  of 
our  congregations  that  1  John  v,  7  —  a  verse  not  found 
in  the  Revised  Version  —  was  an  interpolation ;  and  not 


HERESY  HUNTIXG  261 

one  of  the  twenty  agreed  with  me  in  thinking  that  the 
fact  could  be  safely  stated.  They  all  admitted  that 
the  verse  was  spurious,  but  feared  the  effect  of  letting 
the  people  know  a  truth  so  disturbing.  About  the  same 
time  I  ventured  to  remark  from  the  pulpit  in  reading 
the  eighth  chapter  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  that  the 
thirty-seventh  verse  was  not  in  the  original  manuscript, 
and  the  next  day  I  received  an  indignant  letter  calling 
my  attention  to  the  fate  reserved  for  those  who  "take 
away  from  the  words  of  the  book  of  this  prophecy." 
Such  was  the  prevailing  attitude  of  English-speaking 
Protestants  upon  questions  of  Biblical  criticism,  through 
the  first  three  quarters  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Early  in  the  seventies,  a  copy  of  the  New  Testament  in 
English  was  published,  containing  the  received  version, 
with  footnotes  indicating  the  variations  from  this  ver- 
sion of  the  three  oldest  and  best  manuscrii)ts  in  exist- 
ence,—  the  Vatican,  the  Alexandrian,  and  the  Sinaitic 
Bibles.  It  was  stated  that  none  of  these  manuscripts 
had  been  known  to  the  men  who  made  the  King  James 
translation;  and  it  was  held  by  scholars  to  be  almost 
axiomatic  that  where  these  three  oldest  manuscripts 
agreed,  their  reading  must  be  accepted,  and  that  where 
they  unitedly  disagreed  with  the  received  version,  thr-t 
version  must  be  erroneous.  This  edition  of  the  New 
Testament  put  within  the  reach  of  all  intelligent  readers 
the  means  of  judging  to  what  extent  our  English  verdon 
needed  revision,  and  made  it  plain  that  the  task  under- 
taken by  the  men  at  work  in  the  Jerusalem  Chamber 
was  one  of  serious  importance. 

Such  a  concession,  however  reluctantly  it  might  be 


262  RECOLLECTIONS 

made,  involved  considerable  relaxation  of  the  rigidity 
of  theological  dogmatism,  and  opened  the  way  for  the 
examination  of  many  traditional  behefs.  There  was 
"the  sound  of  a  going  in  the  tops  of  the  trees,"  —  the 
spirit  of  inquiry  was  abroad. 

In  the  autumn  of  1877  the  Reverend  James  F.  Mer- 
riam,  a  son  of  Deacon  George  Merriam,  of  Springfield, 
was  inxited  to  the  pastorate  of  the  Congregational 
church  in  Indian  Orchard,  one  of  the  Springfield  sub- 
urbs. It  was  a  factory  \illage,  and  Mr.  Merriam  had 
already,  by  a  year  of  service,  greatly  endeared  himself 
to  the  community.  He  was  a  man  of  a  most  unselfish 
and  consecrated  temper ;  he  had  sought  this  field  because 
of  the  opportunity  it  gave  him  to  come  into  close  con- 
tact with  the  working-people. 

Before  the  council  called  to  install  him,  Mr.  Merriam 
indicated  some  slight  variations  from  the  traditional 
orthodoxy.  The  only  one  to  which  any  importance  was 
attached  concerned  the  doctrine  of  future  punishment. 
Mr.  Merriam  was  unwilling  to  assert  that  all  who  die 
impenitent  suffer  everlasting  conscious  torment;  he 
was  inchned  to  believe  that  those  who  were  incorrigi- 
ble might  suffer  extinction.  Over  this  heresy  the  council 
wTestled  long  and  painfully;  Mr.  Merriam  was  called 
back  once  or  twice  and  labored  with  to  make  him  revise 
his  statement,  but  he  would  not;  and  finall}',  after  the 
hour  for  the  evening  service  had  arrived,  a  majority  of 
the  council  voted  to  refuse  him  installation.  The  debate 
was  a  warm  one,  and  there  was  great  excitement  in  the 
community,  where  Mr.  Merriam  and  his  family  were 
well  known  and  greatly  honored.  The  local  newspapers 


HERESY  HUNTING  263 

gave  the  matter  large  attention,  and  the  press  of  the 
whole  country,  secular  as  well  as  religious,  took  it  up ; 
it  became  a  matter  of  national  interest. 

Those  of  us  who  were  in  the  minority  in  this  contro- 
versy were  naturally  called  on  to  give  account  of  our- 
selves, and  the  whole  question  of  the  conditions  of  fel- 
lowship and  of  the  obligations  of  denominational  loyalty 
was  up  for  wide  discussion.  In  several  sermons  preached 
about  this  time,  I  tried  to  defend  the  action  of  the  mi- 
nority of  the  council,  and  to  show  that  no  interest  of 
Congregationalism  or  of  Christianity  could  be  imperiled 
by  including  such  men  as  Mr.  Merriam  in  our  fellowship; 
while  their  rejection  was  an  act  of  narrowness  for  which 
we  ought  to  suffer.  The  next  Sunday  after  the  council  I 
re\'iewed  its  action,  pointing  out  the  precise  doctrinal 
ground  on  which  fellowship  was  refused  to  Mr.  Merriam, 
insisting  that  such  a  divergence  as  his  from  the  tradi- 
tional beliefs  was  not  a  good  ground  for  excluding  him 
from  the  ministry,  and  concluding  by  saWng :  — 

"As  many  as  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  they  are  the 
sons  of  God."  Whomsoever  we  exclude,  them  we  want  to 
include,  surely,  in  all  our  choicest  fellowship.  And  how 
shall  we  find  out  who  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God?  We 
can  only  find  out  by  looking  at  their  Hves.  By  their  fruits 
we  know  them.  ''  And  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  love,  joy, 
peace,  lonji-suffcring,  gentleness,  goodness,  faith,  meek- 
ness, temperance  —  against  such  there  is  no  law."  No; 
there  is  not  in  God's  Kingdom,  and  there  never  shall  be  by 
my  help  or  consent  in  any  human  organization  that  tries 
to  represent  God's  Kingdom.  The  man  who  beUeves  in 
Christ,  who  has  the  spirit  of  Christ  in  him,  who  shows  in 
his  life  the  fruits  of  that  spirit,  who,  denj-ing  himself  and 


264  RECOLLECTIONS 

taking  up  his  cross,  is  following  Christ  in  toilsome  but 
loving  labor  for  the  salvation  of  men  —  he  is  my  brother, 
and  nothing  shall  hinder  me  from  offering  him  the  right 
hand  of  fellowship.  I  do  not  care  what  name  they  call 
him  by,  whether  he  is  Churchman  or  Quaker,  Universalist 
or  Roman  Catholic,  he  who  is  united  to  my  Master  shall 
not  be  divided  from  me.  And  when  such  a  man  has  found 
a  company  of  people  who  love  him,  not  because  of  any 
brilliancy  of  wit  that  has  dazzled  them,  nor  because  of 
any  tricks  of  sensationalism  that  have  amused  them,  but 
just  because  of  the  Christ  life  that  is  in  him,  —  and  want 
him  to  live  among  them  and  show  them  how  to  serve  and 
follow  Christ,  —  and  when  he  asks  me  to  come  and  help  to 
join  him  in  loving  bonds  as  pastor  to  this  people,  I  shall 
go,  every  time !  My  blessing  is  not  worth  much,  but,  such 
as  it  is,  God  forbid  that  I  should  withhold  it!  And  if  any- 
body bids  me  be  cautious,  I  answer,  Yes,  I  will  be  very 
cautious  lest  I  hinder  in  his  work  a  true  servant  of  Jesus 
Christ !  I  will  take  great  care  always  lest  I  exalt  the  letter 
above  the  spirit,  the  dogma  above  the  life.  For  I  would 
rather  make  two  mistakes  on  the  side  of  charity  than  one 
on  the  side  of  bigotry. 

Mr.  Merriam's  people  insisted  that  he  remain  with 
them,  in  spite  of  the  adverse  decision  of  the  council; 
and  for  this  reason  some  other  disagreeable  things  were 
done,  in  the  ecclesiastical  assemblies  of  the  neighbor- 
hood, with  the  purpose  of  excluding  the  church  from 
Congregational  fellowship.  Through  the  whole  matter 
Mr.  Merriam  bore  himself  with  exemplary  gentleness  and 
forbearance,  refusing  to  engage  in  any  controversy,  and 
quietly  going  forward  with  his  work,  until  broken  health 
compelled  him  to  lay  down  his  charge. 


HERESY  HUNTING  265 

It  was  only  a  few  weeks  after  the  Indian  Orchard 
Council  that  another  council  was  called  at  North  Adams 
for  the  installation  of  the  Reverend  Theodore  T.  Munger 
over  my  old  church.  Of  that  council  also  I  was  a 
member,  Mr.  Munger  was  known  to  hold  liberal  \'iews 
on  many  questions,  and  the  issue  of  this  council  was 
awaited  with  much  interest.  The  council  was  a  more 
representative  body  than  that  at  Indian  Orchard;  it 
included  President  Noah  Porter,  of  Yale,  and  President 
Hopkins,  of  Williams.  Mr.  Munger's  statement  of  his 
theological  views  was  presented  skillfully,  but  without 
evasion ;  on  one  or  two  points  which  Mr.  Merriam  had 
not  touched  he  diverged  from  the  traditional  statements, 
and  on  the  subject  of  future  punishment  he  was  even 
more  emphatic  in  his  rejection  of  the  orthodox  view 
than  Mr.  Merriam  had  been.  He  was  somewhat  sharply 
criticised,  but  he  defended  himself,  and  when  the  dis- 
cussion was  ended,  the  council  voted  to  proceed  with  his 
installation.  It  was  pleasant  to  be  in  the  majority  again, 
and  to  carry  back  to  Springfield  the  testimony  that 
there  were  other  \'iews  of  the  conditions  of  Congrega- 
tional fellowship  than  those  wliich  had  prevailed  at 
Indian  Orchard. 

These  two  councils  created  no  small  stir  in  our  Con- 
gregational communion.  Ever^'^'here  the  ecclesiastical 
bees  were  buzzing.  What  were  the  conditions  of  fellow- 
ship? How  much  must  one  believe  to  be  a  Congrega- 
tional minister  in  good  standing?  It  was  known,  of 
course,  that  there  was  no  national  Congregational  creed, 
and  no  ecclesiastical  body  which  had  the  power  to  frame 
or  impose  such  a  creed  upon  the  denomination;  the 


266  RECOLLECTIONS 

only  creeds  were  those  of  local  churches,  and  these  were 
by  no  means  uniform,  and  were  binding  only  upon  those 
who  belonged  to  the  local  church.  It  was  argued,  how- 
ever, that  there  was  a  consensus  of  doctrine,  which  was 
sufficiently  well  understood  by  Congregationalists ;  and 
that  those  who  did  not,  ex  animo,  accept  that  consensus 
of  doctrine  had  no  right  to  remain  in  the  Congregational 
ministry.  To  this  it  was  easy  to  reply  that  this  consensus 
had  been  continually  changing ;  that  one  doctrine  after 
another  once  universally  accepted  had  been  modified 
or  dropped,  and  that  there  must  be  room  at  the  present, 
within  the  fellowship,  for  varieties  of  belief. 

In  default  of  any  definite  denominational  standards 
to  which  ministers  could  be  held,  some  of  the  defenders 
of  the  faith  undertook  to  enforce  the  idea  of  self-disci- 
pline. Every  man,  they  argued,  knows  whether  he  is  an 
orthodox  Congregationalist  or  not ;  if  he  knows  that  he 
is  not,  he  is  bound  to  take  himself  out  of  the  fellowship ; 
and  if  he  fails  to  do  so,  he  is  acting  a  dishonorable  and 
unmanly  part.  The  "  Congregational  Quarterly, "  which 
assumed  to  represent  the  denomination,  urged,  with 
considerable  acerbity,  this  method  of  eliminating  here- 
tics. Naming  certain  doctrines  as  not  included  in  the 
Congregational  system,  —  among  them  the  moral  theory 
of  the  Atonement,  —  it  declared  that  the  only  way  in 
which  men  holding  those  doctrines  could  "evince  a 
noble  manhood  "  was  by  promptly  withdrawing  from 
that  ministry.  To  that  challenge  I  ventured  a  reply  in 
the  columns  of  the  "Congregationalist."  After  explain- 
ing that  I  held  and  taught  some  of  the  doctrines  de- 
nounced by  this  censor,  I  said :  — 


HERESY  HUNTING  267 

To  be  told  that  I  am  not  acting  a  manly  part  in  remain- 
ing in  this  fellowship,  is  an  impertinence  which  I  heartily 
resent.  I  am  here  in  the  Congregational  denomination; 
I  suppose  that  I  have  a  right  to  be  here,  and  here  I  pro- 
pose to  stay.  If,  holding  the  opinions  that  I  do,  I  have 
not  a  right  to  be  recognized  as  a  Congregational  minister, 
I  want  to  know  that.  I  do  not  wish  to  be  "  tolerated."  I 
do  not  care  to  be  in  a  ministry  in  which  I  have  not  equal 
rights  with  every  other  minister.  Such  rights  I  suppose 
myself  to  possess,  and  I  shall  continue  to  exercise  them 
until  I  am  advised  by  some  competent  tribunal  that  they 
have  been  abrogated. 

The  editor  of  the  "Quarterly"  says  that  the  moral 
theory  of  the  atonement  "  does  not  belong  to  our  orthodox 
system."  Perhaps  it  does  not  belong  to  his,  but  it  does  to 
mine.  .  .  .  "There  is  no  logical  stopping-place,"  he  goes 
on,  "  between  the  moral  theory  of  tiie  atonement  and  infi- 
delity." An  older  if  not  a  better  pope  has  declared  that 
there  is  no  logical  stopping-place  between  Protestantism 
and  infidelity.  The  one  saying  is  just  as  true  as  the  other. 
I  take  the  liberty  of  deciding  for  myself  what  logic  requires 
of  me. 

I  speak  for  nobody  but  myself;  but  I  happen  to  know 
that  I  am  not  alone  in  my  opinions,  nor  in  my  determina- 
tion to  stand  by  them.  There  are  quite  a  number  of  us 
who  have  no  wish  for  controversy,  but  who  do  believe 
to  some  extent  in  the  manly  art  of  self-defense,  and  we 
shall  not  be  posted  as  sneaks  in  the  "Congregational 
Quarterly"  without  mildly  protesting.  If,  by  refusing 
to  go  straight  over  to  infidelity,  we  must  lose  the  respect 
of  the  editor  of  the  "  Quarterly,"  so  be  it ;  we  shall  try  not 
to  lose  our  self-respect. 

The  response  to  this  was  surprising.  Letters  and 
postal  cards  came  pouring  in  for  a  week  or  two  with  the 


268  RECOLLECTIONS 

heartiest  approval  of  this  declaration  of  independence. 
Yet  those  who  were  standing  for  the  new  measure  of  hb- 
erty  in  the  denomination  were  still  in  a  small  minority, 
and  many  ways  were  found  of  making  their  position 
quite  uncomfortable.  There  is  always  a  denominational 
*' machine,"  more  or  less  political  in  its  methods,  by 
which  ecclesiastical  affairs  are  managed,  and  those  who 
incur  the  displeasure  of  this  machine  are  apt  to  find 
their  paths  to  promotion  obstructed,  and  their  oppor- 
tunities of  service  limited.  A  young  man  sometimes 
finds  himself  branded  as  a  suspect,  and  avoided  by 
those  whose  confidence  he  wishes  to  deserve.  For  sev- 
eral years  I  was  passing  through  this  experience.  It  did 
not  greatly  distress  me,  for  I  knew  that  it  would  not 
endure,  and  my  own  church  never  wavered  in  its  loyalty. 
Sometimes,  the  manifestations  of  this  suspicion,  on  the 
part  of  those  who  knew  me  only  by  name,  were  quite 
amusing.  Yet  I  confess  that  this  method  of  dealing  with 
those  who  are  supposed  to  differ,  in  certain  matters  of 
doctrine,  from  the  majority  of  their  brethren,  often 
filled  me  with  indignation. 

Following  the  lead  of  the  "Congregational  Quarterly,'* 
the  Vermont  State  Convention  of  Congregationalists, 
shortly  after  this,  passed  a  resolution  declaring  that 
men  who  rejected  "any  substantial  part"  of  the  doc- 
trines "commonly  called  evangeHcal"  ought  to  take 
themselves  out  of  the  Congregational  fellowship.  And 
when  an  amendment  was  proposed,  providing  that  the 
resolution  involved  no  imputation  against  the  charac- 
ter of  a  man  who  "neither  in  his  own  mind,  nor  by 
the  decision  of  a  competent  ecclesiastical  tribunal"  was 


HERESY  HUNTING  269 

unworthy  of  fellowship,  it  was  overwhelmingly  voted 
down.  Thus  it  was  sought  to  raise  a  hue  and  cry  by 
means  of  which  heretics  should  be  scared  out  of  the 
denomination.  The  comment  on  this  procedure  which 
I  ventured  to  make  in  a  letter  to  the  "Republican" 
was  this :  — 

It  would  seem  that  so  long  as  a  Congregational  minis- 
ter regards  himself  as  being  in  substantial  accord  with  the 
Congregational  churches,  and  so  long  as  no  church  and 
no  council  of  his  brethren  has  ventured  to  call  his  standing 
in  question,  he  ought  to  be  regarded  as  in  good  stand- 
ing. I  have  never  before  heard  of  any  device  by  which 
his  standing  could  be  impaired,  without  any  action  of 
church  or  council.  But  this  resolution,  as  interpreted  by 
the  action  upon  the  amendment,  provides  a  way  whereby 
any  minister's  standing  can  be  impaired  without  any 
action  of  church  or  of  council.  What  is  that  way?  It  is 
the  way  of  private  accusation.  That  is  precisely  what  is 
authorized  by  the  Vermont  convention.  By  slurs  and  in- 
sinuations and  mischievous  reports  a  minister's  standing 
can  be  badly  damaged.  The  action  of  the  majority  in  the 
Vermont  convention  is  calculated  to  encourage  this  kind 
of  practice.  It  permits  every  man  to  judge  of  the  ortho- 
doxy of  every  other  man,  and  to  pronounce  those  who  do 
not  come  up  to  his  standard  unworthy  of  fellowship.  It 
denies  to  every  man  who  may  be  suspected  of  heresy  the 
right  of  private  judgment  respecting  himself,  and  gives 
to  every  one  who  may  choose  to  accuse  him  the  right  of 
private  judgment  upon  him. 

This  matter  of  the  relation  of  a  minister  whose  mind 
is  moving,  and  whose  beUefs  are  necessarily  changing, 
to  the  church  with  which  he  is  identified  is  one  of  . 


27Q  RECOLLECTIONS 

considerable  interest,  not  only  to  the  clergy,  but  to  the 
laity  as  well.  Upon  the  cases  of  ministers  who  are  not 
in  entire  harmony  with  the  ecclesiastical  organization 
to  which  they  belong  the  secular  newspapers  are  apt  to 
comment  freely.  It  is  generally  assumed  that  if  a  min- 
ister has  ceased  to  agree  in  all  respects  with  the  major- 
ity of  his  brethren,  he  ought  to  leave  them.  But  there 
are  several  considerations  which  ought  to  be  carefully 
weighed  before  censuring  him  for  the  failure  to  depart. 

In  the  first  place,  this  fellowship  may  be  very  dear  to 
him.  He  may  have  grown  up  in  it ;  its  associations 
and  friendships  are  the  best  part  of  his  life;  to  bid 
him  begone  and  leave  it  is  a  harsh  demand. 

In  the  second  place,  while  recognizing  that  he  has 
come  to  differ,  in  some  matters,  from  his  brethren,  he 
may  not  feel  that  these  are  essential  matters.  In  the 
main  concerns  he  still  remains  at  one  with  them ;  there 
are  a  hundred  agreements  where  there  is  one  difference. 

In  the  third  place,  he  feels  that  he  needs,  for  himself, 
this  association ;  it  furnishes  to  him  not  only  stimulus 
but  restraint,  and  it  tempers  the  individualism  of  iso- 
lated thought  with  historic  usages  and  social  judgments. 

In  the  fourth  place,  it  may  be  very  absurd  in  him,  but 
he  cannot  help  thinking  that  in  some,  at  least,  of  the 
things  concerning  which  he  disagi'ees  with  his  brethren, 
he  is  right  and  his  brethren  are  wrong.  He  believes  that 
the  truth  which  God  has  given  to  him  is  truth  which  his 
brethren  need.  Fidelity  to  his  Master  and  love  for  his 
brethren  constrain  him  to  continue  in  the  fellowship. 
He  will  differ  with  them  as  kindly  as  he  can ;  he  will  not 
emphasize  his  difference  in  divisive  and  unseemly  ways, 


HERESY  HUNTING  271 

but  he  will  be  faithful  to  the  truth  as  he  sees  it,  in 
order  that  those  with  whom  he  walks  may  be  led  to  see 
it  also. 

In  short,  he  is  not  a  ''Come-outer,"  he  is  a  "Stay- 
inner."  If  such  a  relation  as  this  is  intolerable  to  his 
brethren,  and  they  will  proceed,  in  orderly  ways,  to 
acquaint  him  with  that  fact,  he  will  go  away  and  leave 
his  blessing  with  them ;  until  then  he  will  remain  in  their 
fellowship. 

Such  have  been  the  principles  by  which  I  have  sought 
to  guide  my  own  conduct,  and  as  I  review  my  relations 
to  the  Christian  communion  with  which,  through  all  my 
life,  I  have  been  identified,  I  am  satisfied  that  they  are 
sound  principles.  I  was  invited,  in  former  years,  a  great 
many  times,  and  not  always  too  politely,  by  those  who 
"seemed  to  be  somewhat,"  to  take  myself  off,  but  I 
could  not  see  that  they  had  authority,  and  I  declined  to 
go.  I  am  glad  that  I  did  not  go.  I  know  that  it  has  been 
better  for  me  to  remain.  The  differences  which  were 
once  emphasized  have  disappeared,  and  the  fellowship 
has  grown  increasingly  dear. 

I  should  not  leave  the  impression  that  in  those  years 
of  controversy  I  was  an  ecclesiastical  outcast.  There 
were  good  friends  in  many  of  the  strong  pulpits  of  New 
England,  —  in  Hartford  and  New  Haven,  in  Worcester 
and  Providence  and  Norwich  and  Boston ;  and  my  peo- 
ple frequently  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  listening  to  the 
best  preachers  of  the  eastern  states,  who  offered  to 
exchange  pulpits  with  me.  After  the  first  flurry  over 
the  Indian  Orchard  Council,  most  of  my  Springfield 
brethren  were  very  cordial  and  neighborly,  and  all  that 


272  RECOLLECTIONS 

I  suffered  as  a  heretic  is  of  small  account.  A  little  good 
fighting  had  to  be  done,  which  was  not,  on  the  whole,  a 
hardship,  and  the  loss  of  favor  in  ecclesiastical  circles 
was  quite  made  up  by  gains  in  other  quarters. 

There  was  a  Connecticut  Valley  Theological  Club, 
into  which  I  was  admitted  soon  after  arriving  in  Spring- 
field, and  with  which  I  continued  in  delightful  comrade- 
ship until  I  left  Massachusetts.  It  was  made  up  of  va- 
rious denominations,  who  met,  monthly,  at  the  Massasoit 
House  in  Springfield  and  spent  the  best  part  of  a  day 
together.  In  the  forenoon  we  heard  three  or  four  papers, 
on  different  aspects  of  a  single  theme  which  had  been 
assigned  for  study ;  after  dinner  we  discussed  the  papers 
and  the  topic.  It  was  not  a  frolic ;  thorough  and  splen- 
did work  was  done,  both  in  the  written  and  in  the  oral 
discussions.  There  was  entire  freedom  and  fearless- 
ness of  criticism,  every  man  spoke  his  mind  with  few 
reserves,  and  the  educational  value  of  these  meetings 
was  to  me  not  inconsiderable. 

In  January,  1878,  there  was  issued,  in  Springfield,  the 
first  number  of  "Sunday  Afternoon,  a  Magazine  for  the 
Household,"  of  which  I  had  undertaken  to  be  the  editor. 
It  was  a  well-printed  monthly  of  ninety-six  pages,  with  a 
physiognomy  not  unlike  that  of  the  "Atlantic  Monthly." 
The  first  editorial  explained  its  purpose.  It  would  fur- 
nish Sunday  reading  for  the  family,  of  a  character  at 
once  wholesome  and  entertaining.  The  contents  would 
not  be  wholly  of  a  devotional  or  meditative  character; 
a  large  portion  of  each  number  would  be  devoted  to  sto- 
ries, of  sound  moral  tendency ;  questions  of  social  life  and 
national  well-being  would  be  discussed,  but  always  in 


HERESY  HUNTING  273 

their  relations  to  the  Kingdom  of  God.  "Questions  of 
practical  philanthropy  will,  however,"  —  so  the  pro- 
spectus runs,  —  "occupy  the  largest  space  in  'Sunday 
Afternoon.'  How  to  mix  Christianity  with  human  af- 
fairs ;  how  to  bring  salvation  to  the  people  who  need  it 
most ;  how  to  make  peace  between  the  employer  and  the 
workman;  how  to  help  the  poor  without  pauperizing 
them ;  how  to  remove  the  curse  of  drunkenness ;  how  to 
get  the  church  into  closer  relations  with  the  people 
to  whom  Christ  preached  the  Gospel ;  how  to  keep  our 
religion  from  degenerating  into  art,  or  evaporating 
into  ecstasy,  or  stiffening  into  dogmatism,  and  to  make 
it  a  regenerating  force  in  human  society,  —  these  are 
questions  which  our  readers  are  likely  to  hear  most 
frequently  and  most  urgently  asked." 

For  nearly  two  years  I  kept  the  entire  editorial  con- 
trol of  this  magazine,  conducting  all  the  correspondence, 
reading  and  editing  all  the  manuscripts,  reading  the 
proof,  and  writing  about  twelve  pages  in  minion  type 
of  editorials  and  literary  notices.  After  that,  for  a  year 
or  more  I  relinquished  the  management  and  wrote  the 
editorial  matter.  Here  came  in  play  my  practical  train- 
ing in  the  printing-office ;  without  that  technical  know- 
ledge I  could  not  have  managed  all  these  details.  For 
during  these  years  the  work  of  my  church  was  not  neg- 
lected, and  it  was  steadily  enlarging  on  my  hands.  It 
was  hard  work  —  more  than  I  ought  to  have  under- 
taken ;  but  it  was  delightful  work ;  the  field  of  the  mag- 
azine was  one  that  I  had  chosen  for  myself;  I  was 
entirely  free  to  cultivate  it  in  my  ovm  way,  and  the 
journalistic  instincts  were  again  given  free  play.  The 


274  RECOLLECTIONS 

magazine  started  well ;  we  soon  had  a  fair  circulation 
and  a  generous  recognition  by  the  press,  and  we  were 
able  to  call  to  our  service  a  fine  array  of  contributors.  It 
seemed  to  be  a  promising  venture,  but  the  health  of 
the  pubhsher  failed,  and  as  there  was  no  one  to  whom 
he  was  willing  to  relinquish  his  enterprise,  it  came  to 
an  untimely  end. 

Through  the  whole  of  my  residence  in  Springfield  my 
communications  were  open  with  the  "Century  Maga- 
zine." Dr.  Holland  called,  now  and  then,  for  contribu- 
tions to  the  body  of  the  magazine,  or  to  the  editorial  or 
literary  departments ;  and  after  his  death,  in  1881,  Mr. 
Roswell  Smith,  the  president  of  the  Century  Company, 
seemed  disposed  to  put  considerable  work  upon  me.  He 
was  a  man  of  great  fertility  of  suggestion,  and,  through 
his  editors,  he  was  always  proposing  topics  for  treat- 
ment in  the  magazine.  Sometimes  I  found  his  sugges- 
tions practicable,  and  sometimes  not ;  but  there  gradually 
grew  up  between  us  a  close  friendship,  and  I  came  to 
regard  him  as  my  most  trusted  counselor. 

It  was  at  his  instance  that  I  undertook  what  proved 
to  be  one  of  the  most  successful  of  my  literary  tasks,  — 
the  writing  of  "The  Christian  League  of  Connecticut." 
" I  want  you,"  he  said,  "to  write  a  kind  of  a  story  show- 
ing how  the  people  in  some  New  England  town  got 
together  and  united  their  forces  in  practical  Christian 
work."  It  was  to  have  been  a  single  article;  but  before 
I  had  gone  far,  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Gilder  that  I  might  want 
to  extend  it  to  two  or  three  numbers,  and  after  reading 
the  first  installment  he  gave  me  the  right  of  way  to  fill 
as  much  space  as  I  wished.  The  series  of  four  articles 


HERESY  HUNTING  275 

attracted  more  attention  than  any  other  magazine 
work  of  mine  had  done ;  not  only  church  people,  but  all 
sorts  of  people,  appeared  to  be  interested  in  them.  The 
practical  question  of  Christian  cooperation  which  they 
raised  was  one  that  appealed  to  many.  To  a  large  extent 
they  were  taken  for  veritable  history ;  I  received  many 
curious  letters  both  from  this  country  and  from  Eng- 
land, where  they  were  republished,  asking  for  further 
information  concerning  the  experiment.  Quite  a  num- 
ber of  movements  for  cooperation  among  churches  and 
for  the  consohdation  of  churches  in  over-churched  com- 
munities were  reported  to  me  as  having  been  directly 
suggested  by  these  articles.  After  the  series  was  con- 
cluded in  the  magazine,  the  articles  were  collected  in  a 
small  volume.  Toward  the  wide  movement  for  the  pro- 
motion of  the  unity  of  Christendom  they  furnished  a 
contribution. 

Duiing  the  eight  years  of  my  life  in  Springfield,  many 
notable  things  were  happening  in  national  affairs. 
Grant's  second  administration  had  come  to  an  end,  and 
the  deplorable  deadlock  of  the  Hayes-Tilden  contest,  in 
the  Centennial  year,  had  ended  in  the  seating  of  Hayes. 
Of  his  election  I  had  been  a  hearty  advocate;  in  the 
soundness  and  sanity  of  his  mind  I  strongly  beUeved ; 
but  the  events  connected  with  the  settlement  of  the  dis- 
pute were  not  such  as  to  fill  the  hearts  of  thoughtful 
patriots  with  satisfaction.  The  last  days  of  1876,  and 
the  early  months  of  1877,  were  a  critical  period  in  Amer- 
ican history.  It  is  difficult,  at  this  day,  to  determine  who 
had  the  moral  right  to  the  presidency.  In  Louisiana,  in 


276  RECOLLECTIONS 

South  Carolina,  and  in  Florida,  the  elections  were  thor- 
oughly vitiated  by  fraud  and  violence.  The  questions 
arising  as  to  the  method  of  ascertaining  the  result  of  the 
election  were  complicated  and  critical.  Congress  must 
decide,  and  the  Senate  was  Republican  while  the  House 
was  Democratic.  On  the  returns  as  presented,  the  Pre- 
sident of  the  Senate  was  sure  to  declare  Hayes  elected, 
and  the  House  of  Representatives  would  decide  that 
no  election  had  taken  place  and  would  proceed  to  elect 
Tilden.  There  was  imminent  danger  of  collision  and 
revolution.  In  almost  any  other  country,  such  a  result 
would  have  been  inevitable.  The  sober  sense  of  the  Con- 
gress which  finally  determined  to  leave  the  whole  matter 
to  an  Electoral  Commission,  composed  of  five  Senators, 
five  Representatives,  and  five  Justices  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  registered  a  great  victory  for  free  government. 
It  seemed  at  the  first  intolerable  and  shameful  that  a 
judicial  tribunal  like  the  Electoral  Commission  should 
divide  upon  the  questions  before  it  on  party  Hues,  every 
Republican  deciding  for  Hayes  and  every  Democrat  for 
Tilden.  Was  there  no  man  of  the  fifteen  who  was  more 
of  a  judge  than  a  politician?  It  was  a  humiliating  spec- 
tacle. Yet  the  question  had  to  be  settled;  Congress, 
which  had  all  the  power,  had  prescribed  this  way  of  set- 
tling it ;  and  there  was  nothing  to  do,  for  a  law-abiding 
people,  but  to  acquiesce  in  the  decision. 

Too  much  praise  is  not  likely  to  be  given  to  Mr.  Tilden 
and  the  Democratic  leaders  for  their  behavior  in  this 
exigency.  Beyond  a  doubt  they  believed  that  the  presi- 
dency rightfully  belonged  to  them.  They  had  agreed  to 
the  Electoral  Commission  with  the  understanding  that 


HERESY  HUNTING  277 

Justice  Da\is,  of  Illinois,  an  Independent,  would  be  the 
fifteenth  man.  It  turned  out  that  he  could  not  serve, 
and  Justice  Bradley,  a  Republican,  was  substituted  for 
him.  They  believed  that  they  had  had  something  less 
than  a  fair  show  in  the  constitution  of  the  tribunal.  In 
any  less  law-abiding  community  they  would  have  felt 
that  they  had  good  ground  for  refusing  to  accept  the 
decision.  But  there  was  hardly  a  threat  of  resistance. 
The  Democrats,  realizing  that  they  were  wronged,  sub- 
mitted with  perfect  patience  to  a  legal  decision  which 
deprived  them  of  the  fruits  of  victory,  and  of  the  control 
of  the  nation  for  four  years.  And  those  who  had  been 
identified  with  the  Republican  Party  from  its  origin,  and 
who  had  shared  in  the  distrust  of  Democratic  leaders 
and  policies,  felt  bound,  in  those  days,  to  confess  that 
the  patriotism  of  the  nation  was  not  confined  to  the 
Republican  Party. 

Aside  from  the  dubious  procedure  with  which  it  was 
introduced,  the  administration  of  President  Hayes  was 
one  of  great  wisdom,  purity,  and  efficiency.  The  removal 
of  the  troops  from  the  South,  the  restoration  of  home 
rule,  and  the  substantial  pacification  of  that  region 
brought  relief  to  all  parts  of  the  land.  This  rational 
policy  came  too  late  to  repair  all  the  injury  which  had 
been  wrought  by  the  measures  of  coercion,  but  it  was 
the  only  thing  to  do,  and  Mr.  Hayes  acted  in  the  matter 
with  great  prudence  and  firmness.  The  resumption  of 
specie  pajnients,  after  a  suspension  of  seventeen  years, 
also  occurred  during  this  administration.  Mr.  Hayes 
greatly  failed  to  please  the  politicians,  but  the  people 
generally  believed  in  him ;  the  verdict  of  history  is  that 


278  RECOLLECTIONS 

few  presidential  careers  have  been  more  honorable  and 
successful  than  his. 

In  subsequent  years,  after  my  removal  to  my  pre- 
sent home,  I  had  the  pri\Tilege  of  meeting  Mr.  Hayes 
quite  frequently.  He  was  then  living  at  his  home  in 
Fremont,  Ohio,  and  finding  constant  emplojTnent  in 
various  uncompensated  services  of  the  commonwealth. 
"I  thought,"  he  said  to  me  one  day,  "when  I  laid  down 
my  high  office,  that  I  was  going  to  have  plenty  of  leisure 
for  the  remainder  of  my  life,  but  I  am  nearly  as  busy  as 
ever  I  was."  The  question  what  to  do  with  our  ex-Presi- 
dents had  not  troubled  him ;  he  was  active  in  our  state 
charities,  he  was  a  trustee  of  our  state  university,  he 
was  always  ready  to  help  in  any  good  work.  It  was  a 
benignant  ending  of  a  faithful  life. 

The  nomination  of  Garfield  was,  of  course,  highly 
gratifying  to  all  "Williams  College  men,  and  his  trium- 
phant election  gave  promise  of  a  brilliant  administra- 
tion of  the  government.  But  the  bitter  political  feuds  in 
which  he  was  soon  involved  were  disheartening,  and  the 
terrible  tragedy  of  his  assassination  was  a  blow  that 
shook  the  nation  to  its  centre.  Well  do  I  remember 
the  shudder  of  horror  that  ran  through  our  streets  that 
July  morning.  One  memory  of  my  own  gave  the  event 
a  peculiar  \d\ddness.  A  few  months  before,  there  had 
come,  one  day,  to  my  study,  a  rather  unkempt  person, 
"Vidth  reddish  hair  and  stubbly  beard,  who  handed  me  a 
small  placard  on  which  he  was  named  and  described  as 
"the  brilliant  and  eloquent  Chicago  laA^yer  and  orator." 
He  was  delivering  lectures  in  reply  to  Robert  Ingersoll, 
and  he  wished  to  speak  in  one  of  the  churches  of  Spring- 


HERESY  HUNTING  279 

field  under  the  patronage  of  the  ministers.  I  told  him 
at  once  that  I  had  no  interest  in  his  enterprise ;  that  if 
the  Christian  people  were  li\ing  as  they  ought  to  Hve, 
what  Robert  Ingersoll  said  about  them  would  not  hurt 
them ;  that  if  they  were  not,  the  less  said  about  it  the 
better.  He  went  away,  but  elsewhere  succeeded  in  se- 
curing a  church  for  his  lecture,  which  was  duly  adver- 
tised. Before  the  hour  appointed  for  it,  however,  an 
officer  from  a  neighboring  city  appeared  upon  the  scene 
with  a  warrant  for  the  arrest  of  the  lecturer  for  jump- 
ing a  board  bill.  The  brilliant  and  eloquent  defender  of 
the  faith  succeeded  in  making  good  his  escape,  and  the 
dubious  parcels  left  behind  him  in  the  house  where  he 
was  lodging,  which  were  supposed  to  contain  his  per- 
sonal effects,  were  found  to  be  filled  with  waste  paper. 
The  name  of  this  personage  was  naturally  impressed  on 
my  mind. 

On  the  day  of  the  assassination  I  called  at  the  Mas- 
sasoit  House  to  pay  my  respects  to  Father  Gavazzi,  the 
distinguished  Italian  Protestant  leader,  who  was  then 
visiting  Springfield.  On  the  steps  of  the  hotel  I  bought 
the  latest  extra,  in  which  it  was  stated  that  the  name 
of  the  assassin  was  "Charles  J.  Getto,"  his  personal  ap- 
pearance was  described,  and  the  conjecture  was  ven- 
tured that  he  was  an  Italian.  I  read  the  dispatch  to 
Father  Gavazzi,  and  the  venerable  man  threw  up  his 
hands  with  horror.  "God  forbid,"  he  cried,  "that  he 
should  be  an  ItaUan !"  The  name  upon  the  handbill  at 
once  occurred  to  me,  and  I  saw  that  this  was  a  phonetic 
spelling.  "No!"  I  said,  "he  is  not  an  Italian.  I  know 
this  man.    His  name  is  not  'Getto,'  it  is  Charles  J. 


280  RECOLLECTIONS 

Guiteau,  and  his  home  is  Chicago."  The  next  extra  had 
the  name  rightly  spelled,  and  the  assassin  fully  identi- 
fied as  our  quondam  defender  of  the  faith. 

The  long  agony  of  that  summer,  while  the  nation 
waited  by  the  bedside  of  its  dying  chief,  left  its  mark  on 
the  lives  that  passed  through  it.  Most  unadvisedly  the 
recovery  of  the  President  was  made  a  test  of  faith  by 
many  religious  people.  It  was  held,  in  many  crowded  and 
weeping  assemblies,  that  if  there  were  prayer  enough, 
and  if  the  prayer  were  the  prayer  of  faith,  he  would  surely 
be  healed.  And  there  were  not  a  few  who  were  ready  to 
claim  that  they  had  the  assurance  of  faith,  and  knew  that 
his  life  would  be  spared.  For  those  who  had  entertained 
this  confidence  the  issue  was  a  sore  trial.  There  were 
many,  doubtless,  who  came  to  doubt  whether  pra5Tr  has 
any  efficacy ;  their  faith  was  overthrown.  Perhaps  there 
were  others  who  learned  to  take  a  more  reasonable  esti- 
mate of  the  relation  of  prayer  to  Providence.  That  is  not 
prayer  which  assumes  to  dictate  to  the  infinite  Wisdom 
what  He  shall  do  in  any  given  case ;  nor  is  that  prayer 
which  exalts  a  subjective  assurance  into  a  revelation  of 
the  di\"ine  will.  There  is  no  true  prayer  which  is  not 
summed  up  in  the  petition,  "Thy  wiU  be  done!"  and 
which  is  not  sure  that  whether  the  specific  request  be 
granted  or  denied,  God's  wiU  is  done. 

One  of  the  striking  issues  of  this  tragedy  was  the 
transformation  which  was  wrought  in  the  character  of 
the  man  on  whom  the  leadership  of  the  nation  fell.  He 
had  not  been  a  man  of  high  political  ideals ;  it  was  with 
a  great  sinking  of  the  heart  that  many  of  us  saw  the  des- 
tinies of  the  nation  committed  to  his  hands.   But  the 


HERESY  HUNTING  281 

sense  of  his  high  responsibilities  roused  him  and  braced 
his  manhood.  At  once  we  saw  him  invested  with  a  dig- 
nity and  a  discretion  with  which  we  had  never  credited 
him.  Instead  of  being  the  leader  of  the  "Stalwart "  fac- 
tion, he  at  once  became  the  President  of  all  the  people ; 
his  policy  was  just  and  liberal ;  his  administration  called 
forth  the  praises  of  those  who  had  distrusted  him,  and 
President  Arthur  laid  down  his  office,  at  the  end  of  his 
term,  with  the  respect  and  confidence  of  the  nation. 

I  remember  a  remark,  made  by  President  Hayes,  some 
years  later,  shortly  after  the  beginning  of  Cleveland's 
first  term.  Some  good  Republican  had  said,  with  an  air 
of  half-incredulous  surprise,  "I  really  believe  that  that 
man  is  trying  to  do  right."  "Of  course  he  is,"  said  Mr. 
Hayes.  "What  else  can  he  do?  That  is  the  only  way 
out.  There  is  no  position  in  this  world  in  which  the 
motives  for  doing  right  are  so  powerful  as  in  the  presi- 
dency of  the  United  States.  As  long  as  a  man  sticks  to 
that  determination,  he  is  safe ;  the  moment  he  wavers 
in  it,  he  is  in  infinite  trouble." 

It  would  seem  that  some  sense  of  this  truth  has 
been  apprehended  by  most  of  the  men  who  have  occu- 
pied this  high  station ;  for  there  are  few  of  them  in  later 
years  who  have  not  come  out  of  the  presidency  stronger 
and  better  men  than  they  were  when  they  entered  upon 
its  duties. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

POSTMERIDIAN 

The  day  becomes  more  solemn  and  serene 

When  noon  is  past ;  there  is  a  harmony 

In  autumn,  and  a  lustre  in  its  sky, 
Which  through  the  summer  is  not  heard  or  ^en, 
As  if  it  could  not  be,  as  if  it  had  not  been! 

Thus  let  thy  power,  which  like  the  truth 

Of  nature  on  my  passive  youth 
Descended,  to  my  onward  life  supply 

Its  calm,  —  to  one  who  worships  thee, 

And  every  form  containing  thee, 

Whom,  Spirit  fair,  thy  spells  did  bind 
To  fear  himself,  and  love  all  humankind. 

Perqj  Bysshe  Shelley. 

The  eight  years  of  my  life  in  Springfield,  from  Decem- 
ber, 1874,  to  December,  1882,  were  busy  and  eventful 
years.  I  have  told  very  little  of  what  was  most  intimate 
and  significant  in  my  life ;  the  relations  of  a  pastor  to  his 
people  cannot  be  reported  in  such  a  narrative.  There 
were  no  surprising  gains  to  be  recounted ;  but  the  mem- 
bership of  the  church  and  the  congregation  steadily 
increased,  and  the  unity  of  the  brotherhood  was  unbro- 
ken. Through  all  the  days  of  controversy  I  never  had  a 
misgi\dng  as  to  the  support  of  my  people ;  no  words  of 
dissent  or  criticism  reached  my  ears.  The  work  of  the 
preacher  had  always  been  a  welcome  and  inspiring 
labor,  but  in  these  eight  years  my  sense  of  its  impor- 
tance had  greatly  deepened. 

But  the  work  of  the  pastor  of  a  city  congregation,  in 
these  inquisitive  and  strenuous  times,  is  sure  to  grow 


POSTMERIDIAN  283 

harder  every  year.  His  congregation  increases,  his  pas- 
toral cares  multiply;  he  is  more  and  more  enlisted  in 
public  interests ;  the  calls  upon  him  are  more  numerous, 
and  the  work  of  the  pulpit  is  more  exacting  every  day. 
There  must  be  no  sense  of  failure  there,  and  unless  he 
preaches  a  little  better  this  year  than  he  did  last,  there 
is  apt  to  be  a  sense  of  failure.  Any  business  man,  any 
other  professional  man,  as  his  success  becomes  more  as- 
sured, is  able  to  relieve  himself  of  more  and  more  of  his 
load,  but  this  is  not  the  case  with  the  minister ;  the  more 
successful  he  is,  the  harder  he  has  to  work,  and  there  is 
very  little  help  for  it.  So  it  came  about  that  the  end  of 
my  eighth  year  found  me  considerably  worn  and  jaded, 
and  the  need  of  some  respite  was  apparent.  I  had  not, 
however,  mentioned  this  conviction  to  any  one,  when, 
one  blue  Monday  morning,  a  letter  arrived  from  Colum- 
bus, Ohio,  inquiring  whether  I  would  consider  a  call  to 
the  First  Congregational  Church  of  that  city.  While  I 
had  the  letter  in  my  hand,  a  telegram  was  handed  me, 
from  my  friend,  Roswell  Smith,  of  the  "Centur}%"  to  let 
me  know  that  he  was  on  his  way  to  Springfield.  The  case 
was  before  me,  and  the  counselor  was  coming.  I  went 
over  the  matter  with  him,  and  he  was  prompt  and  posi- 
tive in  the  judgment  that  I  must  go.  He  had  lived  for 
several  years  in  what  M-e  then  used  to  call  "the  Middle 
West,"  and  he  was  clear  in  his  opinion  that  I  should  find 
profit  in  transplanting  myself  into  that  soil.  The  areas 
were  larger,  and  so  were  the  opportunities.  I  might  want 
to  come  back  to  the  East,  some  day,  but  for  the  next 
ten  years,  at  least,  that  was  the  place  for  me. 

His  advice  moved  me  to  give  a  receptive  answer  to 


284  RECOLLECTIONS 

the  letter  from  Columbus,  and  the  result  was  a  call  by 
telegraph,  a  visit  to  Columbus,  and  the  removal  to  that 
city  in  Christmas  week,  1882. 

Columbus,  in  1882,  was  a  city  of  fifty-two  or  three 
thousand  people.  Commercially  and  industrially  it  has 
always  been  rather  conservative;  it  has  not  much  re- 
sorted to  booms ;  its  growth  has  been  steady  and  solid ; 
its  enterprise  has  not  been  flighty.  I  have  seen  the  city 
more  than  treble  its  population,  but  it  has  all  been  done 
soberly.  Its  first  settlers  came  largely  from  Virginia 
and  Kentucky;  quite  a  perceptible  southern  flavor 
could  be  detected  in  its  social  life  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago.  One  sign  of  that  was  a  hospitality  rather  more 
cordial  than  one  would  look  for  in  a  New  England  city, 
or  in  a  typical  western  city. 

Nothing  was  wanting  to  the  welcome  with  which  my 
new  neighbors  greeted  me ;  they  soon  made  me  feel  much 
at  home.  Yet  the  environment  was,  I  confess,  depress- 
ing. The  hills  to  which  I  had  been  wont  to  hft  up  my 
eyes,  and  from  which  had  often  come  my  help,  were  no- 
where in  sight ;  the  flatness  and  monotony  of  the  land- 
scape were  a  perpetual  weariness.  I  put  all  this  out  of 
my  thought  as  much  as  I  could,  but,  at  first,  it  was  hard 
to  bear.  The  time  came  when  this  craving  ceased  to  give 
me  pain,  and  I  have  learned  to  take  great  pleasure  in 
the  quieter  beauty  of  these  fertile  plains  and  river-bot- 
toms, and  can  now  fully  understand  why  the  Hollanders 
find  a  keen  delight  in  their  own  flat  country,  and  why  the 
artistic  impulse  has  flourished  there  far  more  splendidly 
than  in  Switzerland;  but  nothing  of  this  was  credible 
to  me  in  those  first  months  in  Columbus. 


POSTMERIDL\N  285 

In  those  days  Columbus,  on  the  physical  side,  was 
rather  crude ;  few  of  its  streets  were  paved,  its  hghting 
was  primitive,  its  domestic  architecture  was  not,  as  a 
rule,  a  delight  to  the  eyes.  It  presented  no  such  trim  and 
finished  appearance  as  the  best  New  England  cities. 
Yet  the  streets  were  wide  and  well  shaded,  and  there 
were  large  possibiUties  of  beauty.  It  was  not  only  the 
pohtical  capital  of  the  state :  it  was  also,  in  some  sense, 
the  educational  and  the  philanthropic  capital ;  for  the 
state  university  was  here,  and  state  institutions  for  the 
blind,  the  deaf,  the  insane,  and  the  feeble-minded,  as 
well  as  the  state  penitentiary,  were  here  located.  This 
made  Columbus  the  natural  rallying  centre  for  the  phi- 
lanthropic forces  of  the  state.  The  state  university  was 
then  in  its  feeble  infancy,  with  twenty  or  twenty-five 
instructors  and  three  hundred  and  fifty  students.  I  have 
seen  it  grow  to  a  roll  of  two  hundred  teachers  and  twenty- 
five  hundred  students.  In  this  university,  from  the  begin- 
ning, I  have  found  many  of  the  resources  for  my  work  ; 
a  large  number  of  its  faculty  have  always  been  connected 
with  our  church,  and  many  of  its  students  have  been 
welcomed  in  our  congregation. 

Like  every  other  capital  city,  Columbus  has  always 
been  pervaded  by  the  atmosphere  of  poUtics.  Most  of 
the  state  officials  have  their  offices  here ;  many  conclaves 
of  poUtical  workers  are  held  here ;  it  is  the  convention 
city,  by  eminence,  of  the  state,  and  considerable  num- 
bers of  tliose  who  have  held  pohtical  office  make  their 
homes  here,  after  their  terms  of  office  have  expired. 
Such  influences  as  active  partisan  workers  can  set  in 
motion  are,  therefore,  likely  to  be  encountered  here. 


286  RECOLLECTIONS 

It  is  perhaps  needless  to  say  that  these  influences  are  not 
always  of  the  most  salutary  kind ;  one  would  not,  nat- 
urally, resort  to  a  capital  city  for  the  freshening  of  his 
political  ideals.  Yet  I  am  bound  to  say  that  the  people 
of  Columbus  have  often,  in  recent  years,  manifested  a 
strong  disposition  to  think  for  themselves,  and  I  doubt 
whether  the  "pernicious  activity"  of  the  politicians  is 
much  more  influential  here  than  in  other  Ohio  cities. 

Twenty-five  years  ago,  partisanship  in  Ohio  was  far 
more  intense  than  it  is  to-day.  The  lines  were  sharply 
drawn ;  every  man  was  supposed  to  be  a  thick-and-thin 
adherent  of  one  of  the  two  political  parties.  To  one  who 
had  been  living  in  a  community  where  nearly  every- 
body reads  the  Springfield  "Republican"  at  the  break- 
fast-table, this  kind  of  infatuation  had  a  humorous 
aspect,  and  I  did  not  easily  adjust  myself  to  it ;  often,  I 
fear,  my  mugwumpery  was  a  serious  offense  to  some  of 
my  good  neighbors ;  but  as  time  went  on,  we  came  to 
a  better  understanding. 

The  church  was  an  extremely  plain  structure,  stand- 
ing on  Capitol  Square,  opposite  the  State  House,  and  in 
the  heart  of  the  city ;  for  a  family  church  it  was  not  well 
located,  and  as  the  city  expanded,  this  disadvantage 
would  be  accentuated ;  but  it  was  a  good  meeting-place 
for  general  purposes,  being  accessible  to  street-cars 
from  all  parts  of  the  city,  and  there  were  people  enough 
within  reach  if  the  church  could  attract  them.  The  work 
began  encouragingly,  the  church  and  the  community 
seemed  to  be  hospitable  to  such  views  of  Christian  truth 
as  were  presented,  and  there  were  early  indications  that 
the  field  of  the  church  was  wider  than  the  city. 


POSTMERIDIAN  287 

It  was  in  the  first  year  of  my  ministrj'^  in  Colum- 
bus that  what  is  known  as  "the  Creed  of  1883"  was 
published.  The  history  of  this  Creed  throws  light  on 
Congregational  ways,  and  some  account  of  it  may  be 
interesting  to  those  not  Congregationalists. 

During  the  days  of  our  warm  theological  controversy, 
in  1877  and  1878,  there  was  much  discussion  as  to 
what  were  the  Congregational  doctrines.  There  is  an 
old  creed,  called  the  Savoy  Confession,  which  is  sub- 
stantially the  same  as  the  Westminster  Confession  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  which,  in  the  early  days 
of  New  England,  had  been  recognized  by  the  Congrega- 
tional churches  as  the  expression  of  their  belief.  But 
that  creed  had  become  utterly  antiquated ;  few  Congre- 
gationalists of  any  stripe  were  now  willing  to  subscribe  to 
it,  and  no  other  statement  of  doctrine  had  taken  its  place, 
except  a  brief  confession  of  "the  evangelical  faith," 
adopted  by  a  mass  meeting  on  Burial  Hill,  in  Plymouth. 
It  had  come  to  be  recognized  as  Congregational  doc- 
trine that  no  ecclesiastical  body  existed,  or  could  be 
created,  with  power  to  frame  such  a  creed  and  impose  it 
upon  the  churches,  —  each  church,  by  the  primary  Con- 
gregational principle,  having  the  right  to  make  its  own 
creed.  Yet  there  were  many  who  insisted  that  Congre- 
gationaUsts  must  have  a  creed ;  and  that  the  National 
Council  ought  to  formulate  such  a  statement,  represent- 
ing the  present  belief  of  the  churches.  That  demand 
found  strong  expression  at  the  St.  Louis  Council  of  1880, 
and  was  met  by  a  determined  opposition  on  the  part  of 
those  who  contended  that  the  council  had  no  power  to 
adopt  such  a  creed ;  that  it  would  be  an  infringement  of 


288  RECOLLECTIONS 

the  liberty  of  the  churches.  The  Gordian  knot  was  cut 
by  a  decision  to  appoint  a  committee  of  twenty-five  of 
our  most  competent  theologians,  with  instruction  to 
prepare  such  a  statement  of  doctrine,  at  their  leisure, 
and  print  it,  when  completed,  in  the  newspapers.  It  was 
not  to  be  reported  back  to  the  council,  and  the  council 
was  not  to  hold  itself  responsible  for  it;  it  would  go 
forth  as  the  judgment  of  twenty-five  of  our  leading  men 
respecting  the  essential  Christian  truths  believed  by 
Congregationalists.  It  would  probably  be  accepted  as 
a  substantially  true  statement  of  what  was  generally 
believed  among  us. 

This  committee  of  twenty-five  was  made  up,  of  course, 
mainly  of  very  conservative  men ;  they  took  plenty  of 
time  for  their  deliberations,  and  when  they  were  ready 
to  report,  their  creed  was  found  to  be  a  document  of  sur- 
prising breadth  and  liberahty.  All  the  distinctively 
Calvinistic  dogmas,  for  which  our  conservatives  had 
been  contending,  were  ehminated ;  there  was  no  formal 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  —  "three  persons  in  one  God" ; 
election,  in  the  Calvinistic  sense,  was  not  in  it,  nor  was 
original  sin,  nor  Bibhcal  infallibility ;  and  the  sufferings 
of  Christ  on  the  cross  were  described  as  his  ''sacrifice  of 
himself."  Twenty-three  of  the  twenty-five  names  were 
signed  to  this  creed ;  two  signatures  were  withheld,  and 
it  soon  transpired  that  these  were  refused  because  the 
creed  failed  specifically  to  declare  that  all  persons,  dying 
impenitent,  were  forever  lost,  —  that  there  was  no  pos- 
sibility of  repentance  beyond  the  grave.  The  twenty- 
three  had  been  unwilling  to  make  this  statement,  be- 
cause, as  they  maintained,  there  was  no  clear  Scripture 


POSTMERIDIAN  289 

to  support  it ;  the  two  had  insisted  on  it  as  essential  to 
orthodoxy. 

Thus  began  the  discussion  upon  "second  probation," 
or  "probation  after  death,"  which  made  such  a  stir  in 
our  Congregational  circles.  One  of  the  two  dissentients 
was  a  secretary  of  our  Board  of  Foreign  Missions ;  and  we 
speedily  heard  that  the  Board  would  be  erected  into  a 
bulwark  against  this  loose  doctrine ;  that  no  missionary 
would  be  commissioned  who  was  not  sound  on  this 
question  of  future  probation.  For,  it  was  argued,  the 
admission  that  there  was  a  possibility  of  repentance 
after  death  would  "cut  the  nerve  of  missions";  there 
would  be  no  adequate  motive  to  work  for  the  salvation 
of  the  heathen,  if  such  a  thing  could  be  believed. 

But  presently  there  began  to  come  from  the  mission 
fields  themselves  earnest  protests  against  being  com- 
pelled to  teach  this  doctrine.  Intelligent  Hindus  and 
Chinamen  were  crjdng  out  against  the  brutality  of  it. 
If  no  man  can  be  saved  who  has  not  heard  of  Christ,  and 
death  is  the  limit  of  probation,  then  all  their  ancestors 
were  in  remediless  misery.  They  positively  declined 
to  accept  a  "Gospel"  of  which  this  was  a  cardinal  doc- 
trine. It  became  evident,  by  the  testimony  of  some 
of  our  strongest  missionaries,  that  the  "nerve  of  mis- 
sions" was  most  effectually  cut,  not  by  omitting  this 
doctrine,  but  by  teaching  it. 

All  this,  however,  availed  nothing  to  such  cocksure 
dogmatists  as  those  who  were  pushing  the  propaganda. 
Some  of  these  heretical  missionaries  were  called  home 
and  put  under  the  ban ;  the  tests  were  rigidly  applied  to 
all  missionary  candidates ;  those  who  were  not  sure  that 


im  RECOLLECTIONS 

death  was  the  end  of  hope  to  all  who  died  impenitent 
were  refused  appointment. 

The  controversy  waxed  hot.  Theological  seminaries 
were  involved  in  it ;  every  meeting  of  the  Mission  Board 
witnessed  a  great  debate  on  the  question  of  probation. 
The  conservatives  were,  at  first,  in  a  large  majority  in 
the  corporate  membership  of  the  Board;  but  the  mi- 
nority persisted  in  its  protest,  steadily  increasing  its 
force,  until,  in  1892,  at  Worcester,  the  whole  propaganda 
collapsed ;  those  who  had  been  pushing  it  retired  from 
the  management  of  the  Board,  and  the  attempt  to  fasten 
this  mediaeval  conception  upon  the  Congregational  faith 
was  abandoned. 

It  was  an  enlightening  controversy ;  the  real  nature 
of  the  Christian  faith  was  better  understood  because 
of  it.  And  it  was  an  interesting  fact  that  the  strongest 
testimony  against  this  benighted  notion  came  from  the 
missionaries.  It  is  often  supposed  that  missionaries  are 
a  narrow  and  bigoted  class  of  men ;  the  truth  is  that  we 
are  indebted  to  them  for  much  sound  thinking  on  the 
great  problems  of  Christianity.  The  missionaries  are 
helping  us  to-day  to  take  a  broader  view  of  the  relations 
of  Christianity  to  the  other  religions,  and  to  cultivate 
that  sympathy  of  religions  by  which  alone  ours  may 
vitalize  and  transfigure  those  with  which  it  is  brought 
into  contact. 

Thus  my  work  in  Columbus  began  just  as  this  con- 
troversy was  launched ;  the  debate  in  the  Mission  Board 
and  the  Andover  controversy  were  in  full  blast  in  the 
early  years  of  it,  and  the  public  mind  was  awake  to 
these  theological  issues.  For,  in  truth,  there  is  nothing 


POSTMERIDIAN  291 

that  people  of  ordinary  intelligence  are  so  much  inter- 
ested in,  as  in  these  deep  questions  concerning  the  life 
that  now  is  and  that  which  is  to  come.  I  did  not  bur- 
den my  congregation  with  discussions  of  these  contro- 
verted questions,  but  I  found  them  eager  to  hear  what 
was  said  about  them. 

It  was  an  interesting  period  in  which  to  exercise  the 
function  of  the  Christian  ministry.  The  spirit  of  inquiry 
was  in  the  air.  Very  little  change  had  been  made  in  the 
statements  of  religious  belief  or  in  the  forms  of  church 
administration,  but  some  ancient  traditions  were  chal- 
lenged, and  it  was  evident  that  the  Christian  world  was 
getting  ready  for  a  forward  movement. 

^'V^lat  seemed  to  me  of  the  greatest  importance,  how- 
ever, was  the  solution  of  the  social  problems  which  had 
been  rising  into  prominence  since  the  war,  and  to  which 
the  industrial  depression  had  given  emphasis.  That  ter- 
rible strike  of  the  railroad  men  in  1877,  in  Pittsburg; 
the  telegraphers'  strike  in  1883,  and  a  bitter  struggle 
between  the  operators  and  the  coal-miners  in  the  Hock- 
ing Valley,  which  began  in  April,  1884,  had  brought  very 
strongly  before  my  own  mind  the  critical  character  of 
the  relations  between  the  men  who  are  doing  the  work 
of  the  world  and  the  men  who  are  organizing  and  direct- 
ing it. 

The  Hocking  Valley  strike  came  very  close  to  me ;  for 
the  company  which  was  engaged  in  it  was  largely  repre- 
sented in  my  congregation:  the  vice-president  and 
general  manager  was  one  of  my  board  of  trustees ;  so 
was  another  vice-president,  and  the  treasurer  was  also  a 
member  of  my  congregation.  The  struggle  began  with  a 


292  RECOLLECTIONS 

demand  for  higher  wages,  but  it  was  shortly  merged  in 
a  conflict  over  the  right  of  the  miners  to  organize  for 
their  own  protection.  The  company  had  had  trouble 
with  the  Miners'  Union,  and  had  come  to  regard  that  as 
the  chief  source  of  the  disturbances  in  the  valley ;  it  had 
now  resolved  to  exterminate  the  union,  no  matter  at 
what  cost.  I  remember  a  conversation  with  the  general 
manager,  in  his  office,  in  which  he  expressed  to  me  that 
determination  in  very  emphatic  terms.  "We'll  kill  that 
union,"  he  said,  "if  it  costs  us  half  a  million  dollars." 
Yet  he  was  not  a  narrow  nor  an  inhumane  person ;  he 
was  one  of  the  kindest  and  fairest-minded  of  men.  I 
had  had  frequent  conversations  with  him  on  the  rela- 
tions beween  employers  and  employed,  in  which  he  had 
expressed  a  strong  wish  to  bring  their  interests  into 
harmony.  In  this  contest,  however,  it  seemed  to  him 
that  he  was  seeking  the  best  good  of  the  miners  as  well 
as  of  the  operators  in  fighting  the  union  to  the  death. 

I  had  frequently  expressed  my  conviction  of  the  right 
and  the  necessity  of  labor  organizations,  and  I  did  not 
hesitate  to  reaffirm  the  conviction  during  this  dispute ; 
but  my  judgment  did  not  go  far  with  these  men  who 
were  in  the  thick  of  the  battle.  The  struggle  was  pro- 
tracted for  many  months,  and  it  cost  the  company  quite 
as  much  as  my  friend  had  indicated ;  it  was  ended  by  the 
ostensible  surrender  of  the  miners,  who  signed,  on  their 
return  to  the  mines,  an  iron-clad  agreement  that  they 
would  never  again  join  a  miner's  union.  The  futility  of 
this  compact  might  have  been  evident  to  the  employers ; 
for  these  starving  men  regarded  it  as  a  promise  made 
under  duress,  and  as  a  contract  void  by  reason  of  its 


POSTMERIDIAN  293 

conflict  with  public  morality ;  they  felt  no  more  bound 
by  it  than  they  would  have  been  by  a  promise  made  to 
a  highwayman  at  the  point  of  a  pistol.  Within  three 
months  all  the  miners  were  fully  organized,  and  the 
union,  which  half  a  million  dollars  had  been  spent  to 
kill,  was  thoroughly  alive  again. 

About  a  year  later,  another  demand  was  made  by  the 
miners  through  the  union  for  increased  pay,  and  the 
demand  was  promptly  submitted  to  arbitration,  by  con- 
sent of  both  parties.  The  arbitrator  chosen  w^as  Senator 
Thurman,  a  man  in  whose  justice  everybody  had  con- 
fidence, and  his  decision  was  in  favor  of  the  miners.  The 
operators  submitted  without  complaint,  and  an  agree- 
ment was  then  formed  by  which,  every  year,  the  rate  of 
wages  should  be  fixed  by  a  convention  of  both  parties. 
That  agreement  has  been  adhered  to  until  the  present 
day. 

A  year  or  two  later,  I  inquired  of  my  friend,  the  gen- 
eral manager,  how  matters  were  getting  on  in  the  valley, 
"All  right,"  he  said;  "we  are  having  no  trouble.  The 
fact  is  that  it  is  far  better  to  have  an  organized  and 
disciplined  force  to  deal  with  than  to  deal  with  a  mob." 
It  had  become  evident  to  him  that  a  labor  union,  when 
wisely  handled  and  dealt  with  in  a  just  and  friendly 
spirit,  is  not  necessarily  an  evil  tiling. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION 

These  things  shall  be  —  a  loftier  race 

Than  e'er  the  world  hath  known,  shall  riee, 

With  flame  of  freedom  in  their  souls, 
And  light  of  knowledge  in  their  eyes. 

Nation  with  nation,  land  with  land. 
Unarmed  shall  live  as  comrades  free; 

In  every  heart  and  brain  shall  throb 
The  pulse  of  one  fraternity. 

New  arts  shall  bloom,  of  loftier  mould, 
And  mightier  music  thrill  the  skies. 

And  every  life  shall  be  a  song. 
When  all  the  earth  is  paradise. 

John  Addington  Symondt. 

I  HAVE  sho\\Ti  how  it  was  that,  at  the  beginning  of 
my  ministry  in  Columbus,  the  labor  question  in  its  most 
acute  form  was  thrust  upon  me.  I  was  not  required  to 
go  in  search  of  it :  it  was  made  my  duty,  as  a  Christian 
teacher,  and  as  the  moral  counselor  and  guide  of  the 
men  under  my  care,  to  grapple  with  it,  and  try  and  get 
at  the  rights  of  it.  These  men  in  my  congregation  who 
were  employing  labor  were  sure  to  be  deeply  affected  in 
their  characters  by  the  manner  in  which  they  handled 
this  difficult  business.  The  men  and  women  who  worked 
for  wages,  inside  the  church  and  outside  of  it,  would 
have  their  attitude  towards  the  church  determined 
by  the  way  in  which  it  dealt  with  this  serious  question. 
I  knew  these  employers,  many  of  them,  to  be  men  of 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION       295 

humane  and  generous  purposes;  I  knew  many  of  the 
workingmen,  and  was  in  entire  sympathy  with  their 
efforts  to  improve  their  condition ;  and  I  witnessed  with 
sorrow  and  alarm  the  \\idening  of  the  breach  between 
these  classes ;  the  deepening  tendency,  in  each  of  them, 
to  erect  its  own  social  group  into  a  separate  principal- 
ity, ignoring  the  solidarity  of  society,  and  pushing  its 
own  claims  at  the  cost  of  all  the  rest. 

To  deal  with  this  question,  it  was  necessary  to  have 
some  kind  of  social  philosophy,  some  theory  of  the  right 
relations  of  men  in  society.  By  what  principles  or  laws 
ought  men  who  are  cooperating  in  industry  to  govern 
their  conduct? 

The  prevailing  social  philosophy  of  the  nineteenth 
century  was  grounded  in  the  principle  of  laissez  faire. 
From  the  excessive  paternalism  of  earlier  centuries  the 
revolt  in  the  direction  of  a  let-alone  policy  was  natural. 
But  such  reactions  are  likely  to  go  too  far.  Laissez  faire 
had  come  to  mean  not  only  "Let  well  enough  alone," 
which  is  always  a  ^^  ise  maxim,  but  also,  "  Let  ill  enough 
alone."  Its  contention  was  that  ill  enough,  if  let  alone 
long  enough,  was  sure  to  turn  out  well  enough.  About 
that  there  is  question. 

The  maxim  applied,  primarily,  to  governmental  in- 
terferences with  industrial  and  commercial  affairs.  It 
was  contended  that  the  government  had  no  call  to  med- 
dle with  trade  or  production ;  that  its  only  function  was 
to  keep  the  peace,  to  prevent  encroachments  of  the 
strong  upon  the  weak,  to  estabhsh  and  guarantee  full 
liberty  of  contract  and  action,  and  then  leave  all  other 
relations  among  men  to  settle  themselves  by  natural 


296  RECOLLECTIONS 

law.  The  reasoning  was  plausible,  but  it  was  easy  to 
show  that  governments  had  found  it  impossible  to  keep 
within  these  limits ;  that  the  freest  of  them  were  con- 
stantly exerting  their  power  for  other  and  higher  pur- 
poses. The  post-office,  the  public -school  system,  the 
public  parks  and  museums  and  libraries  and  art  gal- 
leries, are  evidences  that  the  kind  of  government  which 
springs  from  the  life  of  a  free  and  intelligent  people  is 
sure  to  do  a  good  many  other  things  besides  keeping  the 
peace.  But  just  how  far  it  may  interfere  to  regulate  the 
industrial  relations  of  men  is  still  a  question  of  great 
difficulty.  It  is  notorious  that  many  such  attempts 
have  been  productive  of  more  harm  than  good,  and 
the  advocates  of  non-interference  are  able  to  make 
out  a  strong  case. 

But  there  has  been  a  tendency  to  extend  the  maxim  to 
individual  action ;  to  make  it  mean  that  the  whole  in- 
dustrial process  is  under  the  dominion  of  inexorable  law, 
so  that  nothing  can  be  done  by  intelligence  and  good 
will  to  change  its  issues ;  that  we  can  only  let  it  alone  and 
permit  it  to  work  out  its  inevitable  results.  Some  such 
philosophy  as  this  lies  at  the  bottom  of  many  minds. 
It  is  the  notion  that  "the  great  natural  law  of  supply 
and  demand"  is  supreme;  that  its  hardships,  whatever 
they  may  be,  are  part  of  the  natural  order  of  things; 
that  it  is  futile  to  attempt  to  alleviate  them.  Many 
employers,  confronted  with  discontent  and  even  suf- 
fering among  their  employees,  shelter  themselves  be- 
hind this  theory  of  the  inexorableness  of  the  economic 
process. 

The  essential  untruth  of  this  philosophy,  as  I  have 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION       297 

before  indicated,  was  apparent  to  me;  for,  taught  by 
such  econonaists  as  Francis  A.  Walker  and  Cliff  Leslie 
and  Wilhelm  Roscher  and  Adolf  Wagner,  I  had  been 
able  to  see  that  human  intelligence  and  will  do  pro- 
foundly affect  the  course  of  economic  development. 
Take  such  a  capital  fact  as  this,  —  that  the  rents  of 
agricultural  land  in  England  had  always  been  lower  than 
in  Ireland,  for  this  plain  reason :  public  opinion  in  Eng- 
land frowned  on  the  rack-renting  practiced  across  the 
Irish  Channel.  Here  was  a  moral  force  essentially  modi- 
fying the  economic  process.  And  there  are  multitudes 
of  such  instances.  The  inexorableness  of  economic  law 
did  not,  then,  forbid  the  attempt  to  bring  the  principles 
of  justice  and  kindness  to  bear  upon  the  solution  of 
the  labor  problem.  Reason  and  conscience  must  have 
much  to  do  in  finding  the  right  solution. 

To  bring  the  reason  and  the  conscience  of  the  com- 
munity, and  especially  of  the  Christian  community,  into 
close  contact  with  this  problem  was  a  large  part  of  my 
endeavor  during  the  first  years  of  my  life  in  Columbus. 
In  several  Sunday  evening  addresses,  more  or  less 
closely  related  to  this  theme,  most  of  which  were  after- 
ward printed  in  the  "  Century  Magazine  "  and  other  peri- 
odicals, and  which  were  finally  included  in  a  volume 
entitled  "Applied  Christianity,"  I  sought  to  deal  with 
this  central  question.  The  title  of  the  volume  indicates 
the  gist  of  the  discussions.  I  remember  that  when  I  sub- 
mitted this  volume  to  the  publishers,  Mr.  Scudder,  who 
was  then  the  reader  for  the  firm,  hesitated  over  the  title. 
He  could  not  see  the  force  of  the  adjective,  I  tried  to 
show  him  that  the  whole  significance  of  the  book  was  in 


298  RECOLLECTIONS 

that  adjective ;  that  the  thing  which  the  world  needed 
most  was  a  direct  appUcation  of  the  Christian  law  to  the 
business  of  life.  He  accepted  the  explanation,  and  I 
fancy  that  whatever  may  have  been  the  fate  of  the 
contents  of  the  book,  the  title  of  it  has  served  to  call 
attention  to  an  important  fact. 

That  the  sufficient  remedy  for  the  disorders  of  the  in- 
dustrial w^orld  is  the  application  to  them  of  the  Christian 
rule  of  life  is  the  conclusion  to  which  my  study  brought 
me,  and  the  entire  progress  of  events  since  that  day  has 
confirmed  the  judgment.  But  it  is  necessary  to  under- 
stand what  the  Christian  rule  of  life  is.  The  form  in 
which  it  is  stated  in  Christ's  compend  of  the  moral  law 
is,  I  believe,  exact  and  adequate ;  but  the  full  force  of 
it  is  not  always  apprehended.  "Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself  "  is  sometimes  taken  as  a  maxim  of 
sheer  altruism.  But  the  fundamental  obligation  is  ra- 
tional self-love.  That  is  made  the  measure  of  our  love 
for  our  neighbor.  How  much  shall  I  love  my  neighbor? 
As  much  as  I  love  myself.  This  implies  that  I  regard 
myself  as  a  being  of  essential  worth.  I  am  a  child  of 
God  as  truly  as  my  neighbor  is;  and  I  am  bound  to 
honor  and  cherish  the  selfhood  intrusted  to  me.  I  have 
no  more  right  to  neglect  and  despise  myself  than  I  have 
to  neglect  or  despise  my  neighbor.  I  ought  to  have  some 
sense  of  the  value  and  sacredness  of  my  neighbor's  per- 
sonality. I  am  not  to  degrade  or  destroy  myself  in  min- 
istering to  him,  nor  am  I  to  degrade  and  destroy  him 
in  ministering  to  myself ;  I  am  to  identify  his  interest 
with  mine,  and  we  are  to  share  together  the  good 
which  the  divine  bounty  distributes  to  all. 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION       299 

This  is  the  Christian  law,  as  I  understand  it,  and  it 
gives  ample  room  for  that  legitimate  self-assertion  which 
some  moralists  have  failed  to  find  in  Christianity,  as  well 
as  for  that  self-denial  which  restrains  the  excesses  of 
self-love.  In  the  first  chapter  of  "Applied  Christianity" 
this  principle,  as  it  relates  to  human  society,  is  stated  in 
words  which  I  venture  here  to  repeat. 

Society  results  from  a  combination  of  egoism  and  al- 
truism. Self-love  and  self-sacrifice  are  both  essential;  no 
society  can  exist  if  based  on  either  of  them  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  the  other.  Without  the  self- regarding  virtues  it 
would  have  no  vigor:  without  the  benevolent  virtues 
it  would  not  cohere.  But  the  combination  of  capitalists 
and  laborers  in  production  is  a  form  of  society.  These  two 
elements  ought  to  be  combined  in  this  form  of  society. 
The  proportion  of  altruism  may  be  less  in  the  factory  than 
in  the  home  or  the  church,  but  it  is  essential  to  the  peace 
and  welfare  of  all  of  them.  Yet  the  attempt  of  the  present 
system  is  to  base  this  form  of  society  wholly  on  competi- 
tion, which  is  pure  egoism.  It  will  not  stand  securely  on 
this  basis.  The  industrial  system,  as  at  present  organized, 
is  a  social  solecism.  It  is  an  attempt  to  hold  society  to- 
gether upon  an  anti-social  foundation.  To  bring  capital- 
ists and  laborers  together  in  an  association,  and  set  them 
over  against  each  other  and  announce  to  them  the  prin- 
ciple of  competition  as  the  guide  of  their  conduct,  — 
bidding  each  party  to  get  as  much  as  it  can  out  of  the  other 
and  to  give  no  more  than  it  must  —  for  that  is  precisely 
what  competition  means, —  is  simply  to  declare  war,  a 
war  in  which  the  strongest  will  win. 

The  Christian  moralist  is,  therefore,  bound  to  admonish 
the  Christian  employer  that  the  wage-system,  when  it 
rests  on  competition  as  its  sole  basis,  is  anti-social  and 


300  RECOLLECTIONS 

anti-Christian.  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thy- 
self" is  the  Christian  law,  and  he  must  find  some  way  of 
incorporating  that  law  into  the  organization  of  labor.  It 
must  be  something  more  than  an  ideal,  it  must  find  ex- 
pression in  the  industrial  scheme.  God  has  not  made  men 
to  be  associated  for  any  purpose  on  a  purely  egoistic  basis, 
and  we  must  learn  God's  laws  and  obey  them.  It  must 
be  possible  to  shape  the  organization  of  our  industries  in 
such  a  way  that  it  shall  be  the  daily  habit  of  the  workman 
to  think  of  the  interest  of  the  employer,  and  of  the  em- 
ployer to  think  of  the  interest  of  the  workman.  We  have 
thought  it  very  fine  to  say  that  the  interests  of  both  are 
identical,  but  it  has  been  nothing  more  than  a  fine  saying; 
the  problem  now  is  to  make  them  identical. 

The  substance  of  what  I  have  been  trying  to  say  on 
this  subject,  through  all  the  years  of  my  ministry,  is 
included  in  this  short  extract.  Nothing  is  plainer  to 
me  than  that  the  existing  system  of  industry,  with  rigid 
organization  of  employers  on  the  one  side  and  laborers 
upon  the  other,  each  determined  to  override  and  sub- 
jugate the  other,  is  the  essence  of  unreason.  The  entire 
attitude  of  both  parties  is  anti-social.  It  is  simply 
absurd  to  imagine  men  are  made  to  live  together  on  any 
such  basis.  They  are  putting  themselves  into  deadly 
conflict  with  the  primary  laws  of  life. 

In  the  spring  of  1886,  when  a  fierce  strike  had 
been  raging  in  Cleveland,  a  philanthropist  of  that  city 
conceived  the  idea  of  getting  the  employers  and  the 
employed  to  come  together  in  a  mass  meeting  to  be  ad- 
dressed by  some  one  who  was  supposed  to  be  reasonably 
impartial  in  his  attitude  toward  the  contending  parties. 
The  choice  fell  on  me,  and  I  found  myself  confronted, 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION        301 

in  the  Music  Hall  of  that  city,  by  an  audience  in  wliich 
the  laboring-class  was  mainly  in  e\'idence,  though  a 
sprinkling  of  the  other  class  was  visible.  "Is  it  Peace 
or  War?"  was  the  question  to  which  I  addressed  my- 
self. The  workingmen  before  me  were  evidently  in 
a  critical  mood.  They  listened,  through  the  first  half 
of  my  address,  with  respect,  but  in  silence.  They  had 
their  doubts  about  parsons ;  they  probably  expected  me 
to  take  sides  with  their  employers.  In  due  season  they 
were  reassured  on  that  point ;  they  saw  that  they  were 
listening  to  one  who  was  able  to  get  their  point  of  ^•iew, 
and  it  was  pleasant  to  see  the  suspicion  fade  out  of  their 
eyes  and  the  signs  of  appreciative  interest  appearing. 
This  is  part  of  what  they  heard :  — 

Since  this  is  the  day  and  age  of  combinations,  since 
capital  in  a  thousand  ways  is  forming  combinations  for 
its  own  advantage,  who  will  deny  to  labor  the  right  to 
combine  for  the  assertion  of  its  just  claims?  Combina- 
tion means  war,  I  admit.  Combinations,  whether  of  capi- 
tal or  labor,  are  generallj^  made  in  these  days  for  fighting 
purposes.  And  war  is  a  great  evil  —  no  doubt  of  that. 
But  it  is  not  the  greatest  of  evils.  The  permanent  de- 
gradation of  the  men  who  do  the  world's  work  would  be 
a  greater  evil.  And  if,  by  combination,  the  wage-workers 
can  resist  the  tendencies  that  are  crowding  them  down, 
and  can  assert  and  maintain  their  right  to  a  proportional 
share  of  the  growing  wealth,  then  let  them  combine,  and 
let  all  the  people  say  Amen. 

The  present  state  of  the  industrial  world  is  a  state  of 
war.  And  if  war  is  the  word,  then  the  efficient  combina- 
tion and  organization  must  not  all  be  on  the  side  of  capital. 
While  the  conflict  is  in  progress,  labor  has  the  same  right 


302  RECOLLECTIONS 

that  capital  has  to  prosecute  the  warfare  in  the  most  effec- 
tive way.  If  war  is  the  order  of  the  day,  we  must  grant  to 
labor  beUigerent  rights.  The  sooner  this  fact  is  recognized, 
the  better  for  all  concerned.  The  refusal  to  admit  it  has 
made  the  conflict,  thus  far,  much  more  fierce  and  san- 
guinary than  it  would  otherwise  have  been. 

When  the  workingmen  heard  that,  they  were  not 
silent ;  they  gave  me  a  rousing  cheer.  But  they  were 
compelled  to  listen  to  quite  a  number  of  things  after 
that  which  did  not  make  them  cheer.  For  I  did  my 
best  to  bring  home  to  them,  and  to  the  employers  who 
sat  among  them,  the  foolishness  of  the  enterprise  in 
which  both  sides  were  enlisted.  The  utter  stupidity 
and  absurdity  of  an  industrial  system  based  on  war; 
the  enormous  waste  of  the  common  resources  which  it 
involves ;  the  far  worse  destruction  of  the  moral  wealth 
of  the  community,  the  good  will  and  mutual  trust  in 
which  all  human  welfare  is  grounded,  —  all  this  I  tried 
to  make  plain  to  them.  "Is  not  this  business  of  war,"  I 
asked  them,  "a  senseless,  brutal,  barbarous  business, 
at  best  ?  Does  either  side  expect  to  do  itself  any  good  by 
fighting  the  other  ?  It  is  about  as  rational  as  it  would  be 
for  the  right  hand  and  the  left  hand  to  smite  each  other 
with  persistent  and  deadly  enmity,  or  for  the  eyes  and 
the  ears  to  array  themselves  against  each  other  in  a  re- 
morseless feud.  It  is  a  sorry  comment  on  our  civilization 
that  here,  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  Christian  century, 
sane  and  full-grown  men,  whose  welfare  depends  wholly 
on  the  recognition  of  their  mutual  interests  and  on  the 
cooperation  of  their  efforts,  should  be  ready  to  spend  a 
good  share  of  their  time  in  trying  to  cripple  or  destroy 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION        303 

one  another.  It  is  not  only  wicked,  it  is  stupid :  it  is  not 
simply  monstrous,  it  is  ridiculous." 

Some  very  frank  words  were  then  spoken  to  both  par- 
ties in  this  controversy.  While  I  was  laying  down  the 
law  to  the  employers,  the  men  cheered  heartily ;  when 
I  began  to  drive  home  to  them  their  own  blunders  and 
sins,  they  were  less  demonstrative,  but  presently  e\anced 
their  fairness  by  cheering  the  points  that  were  scored 
against  themselves.  And,  at  the  end,  after  a  warm 
appeal  for  peace,  the  prolonged  applause  was  a  most 
grateful  testimony  that  the  hearts  of  fifteen  hundred 
workingmen  were  in  the  right  place. 

The  next  week  I  had  an  engagement  to  lecture  in 
Tremont  Temple,  Boston.  The  occasion  was  one  of  some 
importance:  Governor  Robinson,  an  old  friend  and 
neighbor  of  mine,  was  to  preside,  and  the  audience 
would  be  composed  of  some  of  the  solid  men  of  Boston. 
I  determined  to  repeat  this  address,  "Is  it  Peace  or 
War?"  Would  these  people,  mainly  of  the  employing 
class,  warm  up  to  it  as  the  workingmen  had  done  ?  I  had 
my  misgivings.  But  the  event  showed  that  this  audience 
was  quite  as  cordial  as  the  other  had  been ;  and  at  the 
close  of  the  address,  the  men  on  the  platform,  including 
the  Governor,  a  member  of  Congress,  who  was  also  a 
leading  manufacturer,  and  others,  united  in  inviting  me 
to  return  to  Boston  on  the  next  Saturday  night  and  re- 
peat the  address  in  the  same  place  to  the  workingmen  of 
the  city,  to  whom  the  hall  was  to  be  made  free.  On  that 
occasion  I  had  with  me  on  the  platform  several  employ- 
ers, and  several  labor  leaders,  among  them  the  head 
organizer  for  Massachusetts  of  the  Knights  of  Labor; 


304  RECOLLECTIONS 

and  at  the  close  of  the  address,  every  one  of  these 
men  indorsed,  without  quaUfication,  my  argument  and 
appeal. 

I  have  given  the  history  of  this  address,^  because  it 
indicates  the  position  which  I  have  tried  to  maintain, 
and  because  it  shows  that,  at  that  time,  the  chasm  be- 
tween the  contending  classes  was  not  so  wide  but  that 
it  could  be  spanned  by  reason  and  good  will. 

Another  opportunity  of  a  similar  sort  came  to  me  a 
little  later.  The  Ohio  State  Association  of  Congrega- 
tionaUsts  made  me  chairman  of  a  committee  to  investi- 
gate the  labor  conditions  of  the  state ;  and  this  commit- 
tee arranged  for  two  conferences  between  employers  and 
labor  leaders,  one  at  Columbus  and  the  other  at  Toledo. 
To  each  of  these  conferences  a  number  of  the  most  intel- 
ligent and  influential  employers  of  the  neighborhood 
were  invited,  and  about  an  equal  number  of  the  leaders 
of  organized  labor.  Most  of  the  men  inxited  responded 
to  the  invitation.  In  each  of  the  cities  a  day  was  spent 
in  the  conferences,  with  two  sessions,  afternoon  and 
evening.  A  short  series  of  very  simple  questions  had 
been  prepared  and  printed  on  the  letters  of  invitation,  — 
questions  calUng  out  the  opinions  of  the  men  in\ited 
upon  existing  conditions  in  the  industrial  world ;  upon 
the  reasons  for  the  present  conflict ;  upon  the  practicabil- 
ity of  industrial  partnership  and  other  possible  methods 
of  promoting  peace  and  welfare.  The  conference  was 
conducted  by  calling  first  on  a  labor  leader,  and  then  on 
an  employer,  to  express  his  views  of  the  situation.  Some 

^  It  was  published,  in  May,  1886,  in  the  Century  Magazine,  and 
is  included  in  the  volume  Applied  Christianity. 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION        305 

questioning  was  permitted,  but  it  was  all  civil  and  re- 
spectful ;  we  all  understood  that  it  was  not  a  dispute, 
but  a  fair  opportunity  for  each  one  to  speak  his  own 
mind.  There  was  much  frankness  in  the  utterance  of 
opinion,  but  very  little  acerbity ;  it  did  not  seem  impos- 
sible that  such  men  as  were  facing  each  other  in  these 
discussions  should  be  able  to  arbitrate  their  differences. 

I  fear  that  the  relations  between  the  contending 
parties  have  not  improved  since  that  day.  So  far  as  I 
can  see,  the  breach  is  widening.  The  fierce  strike  in  the 
anthracite  coal  regions  was  the  worst  of  our  labor  dis- 
putes; and,  although  it  was  amicably  settled,  the  condi- 
tions which  followed  were  not  reassuring.  The  working- 
men,  in  that  case,  had  the  sympathy  of  the  public,  and 
they  won  a  notable  victory ;  I  fear  it  must  be  said  that 
they  failed  to  make  the  best  use  of  it.  Their  demands 
grew  more  exacting  and  unreasonable ;  in  all  parts  of 
the  country  there  were  symptoms  of  a  disposition  to 
push  their  advantage  to  the  discomfiture  of  their  em- 
ployers. The  result  of  that  has  been  a  serious  exacerba- 
tion of  temper  on  the  part  of  the  employing  class.  Or- 
ganizations of  employers  have  arisen  in  late  years,  whose 
attitude  toward  organized  labor  is  more  hostile  than 
anything  which  has  been  known  in  our  history.  And  I 
fear  that  it  will  be  found  that  there  are  thousands  of 
employers  in  all  parts  of  the  country  who,  a  few  years 
ago,  were  disposed  to  be  reasonable  in  their  treatment 
of  the  labor  unions,  but  who,  to-day,  are  maintaining 
toward  them  an  attitude  of  almost  vindictive  opposition. 

The  Civic  Federation  has  done  something  to  mitigate 
these  antipatliies,  but  in  so  doing  it  has  gained  for  itself 


306  RECOLLECTIONS 

the  warm  dislike  of  the  belhgerent  employers  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  the  fighting  labor  federations  on  the  other. 

What  the  outcome  of  this  conflict  is  to  be,  I  do  not 
predict.  The  evident  expectation  of  some  of  the  em- 
ployers that  they  will  be  able  to  kill  or  cripple  the  unions 
is  hardly  rational ;  the  evident  determination  of  some  of 
the  labor  leaders  to  extend  the  use  of  the  boycott  and 
the  sympathetic  strike  is  not  intelligent ;  such  a  conflict 
as  both  sides  seem  bound  to  invoke  can  result  in  nothing 
but  disaster.  Chronic  warfare  in  the  industrial  world  is 
intolerable,  and  the  world  is  coming  to  understand  it  so. 
We  are  going  to  make  an  end  of  international  wars  very 
soon ;  the  absurdity  of  that  way  of  settUng  the  disputes 
of  nations  is  becoming  apparent  to  all  civilized  peoples. 
And  the  foolishness  of  industrial  strife  is  not  less  obvi- 
ous. If  the  wage-system  means  perennial  war,  the  wage- 
system  must  pass,  and  some  less  expensive  method  of 
organizing  industry  must  take  its  place. 

The  alternative  now  constantly  in  sight  is  Socialism. 
Socialism  proposes  that  the  functions  of  the  capitalist 
and  the  entrepreneur  shall  be  merged  in  the  common- 
wealth. That  seems  to  abolish  one  party  to  the  quarrel, 
and  is  indicated,  in  the  Socialist  diagnosis,  as  the  way 
of  peace.  That  it  may  come  to  this  sometimes  seems 
probable.  Yet  I  have  never  been  able  to  regard  this 
possibility  with  enthusiasm.  There  is  an  old  Latin 
proverb  about  making  a  solitude  and  calling  it  peace. 
The  Socialistic  solution,  applied  as  a  panacea,  would 
not  give  us  a  solitude,  but  it  might  give  us  stagnation. 
It  does  not  agree  with  that  theory  of  human  nature  of 
which  I  have  spoken ;  it  gives  no  adequate  play  to  the. 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION       307 

self-regarding  motives.  The  present  sj'stem  overworks 
them ;  Socialism  imdervalues  them,  ^\^lat  we  have  to 
do  is  to  coordinate  them  with  the  motives  of  good  will 
and  sympathy,  and  get  the  full  force  of  both  in  our 
schemes  of  social  construction.  The  gains  of  coopera- 
tion must  not  be  purchased  at  the  cost  of  the  integrity 
of  the  individual. 

We  may  be  plunged  into  a  Socialistic  experiment  at 
no  distant  day;  toward  that  precipice  our  employers' 
associations  and  our  labor  federations  seem  to  be  driv- 
ing us ;  but  if,  in  our  haste,  we  take  that  step,  we  shall 
find  leisure  to  repent  of  it.  This  people  is  not  yet,  in  its 
prevailing  ideas  and  tempers,  sufficiently  sociafized  to 
work  the  machinery  of  Socialism.  The  testimony  of  one 
of  the  ablest  of  the  Socialists  is  in  point :  "It  is  well  to 
keep  in  mind  the  entire  dependence  of  SociaUsm  upon  a 
high  level  of  intelligence,  education,  and  freedom.  So- 
cialist institutions,  as  I  understand  them,  are  only  pos- 
sible in  a  civilized  state,  in  a  state  in  which  the  whole 
population  can  read,  write,  discuss,  participate,  and, 
in  a  considerable  sense,  understand.  Education  must 
precede  the  Socialist  state.  Socialism,  modern  Socialism, 
that  is  to  say,  such  as  I  am  now  concerned  with,  is 
essentially  an  exposition  of  and  training  in  certain  gen- 
eral ideas;  it  is  impossible  in  an  illiterate  community, 
a  basely  selfish  community,  or  in  a  community  without 
the  capacity  to  use  the  machinery  and  the  apparatus 
of  civilization.  At  the  best,  and  it  is  a  poor  best,  a 
stupid,  illiterate  population  can  but  mock  SociaUsm 
with  a  sort  of  bureaucratic  tyranny;  for  a  barbaric 
population,  too  large  and  various  for  the  folk-meeting, 


308  RECOLLECTIONS 

there  is  nothing  but  monarchy  and  the  ownership  of  the 
King;  for  a  savage  tribe,  tradition  and  the  undocu- 
mented will  of  the  strongest  males.  Socialism,  I  will 
admit,  presupposes  intelligence,  and  demands  as  funda- 
mental necessities,  schools,  organized  science,  literature, 
and  a  sense  of  the  state."  ^  It  is  impossible  for  us  to 
persuade  ourselves  that  "the  whole  population"  of  the 
United  States  of  America,  or  of  any  state  in  the  Union, 
has  attained  unto  any  such  standard  as  is  here  pre- 
scribed. With  the  vast  illiterate  and  unassimilated 
elements  of  our  national  life,  with  so  many  millions  who 
are  separated  from  the  commonwealth  and  from  one 
another  by  the  barriers  of  race  and  language,  it  would 
be,  indeed,  a  mock  Socialism  which  we  should  succeed, 
at  this  juncture,  in  setting  up. 

It  would  be  a  great  calamity,  therefore,  if  the  intol- 
erable strife  between  organized  capital  and  organized 
labor  should  precipitate  an  attempt  to  put  all  our  in- 
dustries upon  the  basis  of  collectivism.  But  though  we 
could  not  wisely  go  all  the  way  with  the  Socialists,  we 
might,  safely,  go  part  way  with  them.  Indeed,  we  are 
already  mo\dng  in  the  direction  in  which  they  would 
lead  us.  The  Post-Office  is  a  socialistic  institution ;  it 
would  be  wise  to  extend  its  service,  and  make  it  the 
universal  carrier  of  small  parcels.  That  the  telegraph 
should  be  added  to  this  branch  of  the  public  service  is 
evident ;  and  the  relation  of  the  railways  to  the  indus- 
tries of  the  country  is  so  close  and  vital  that  they,  too, 
must  soon  be  brought  under  governmental  control. 
Doubtless  we  shall  keep  on  for  several  years  trying  to 

»  New  Worlds  for  Old,  by  H.  G.  Wells,  p.  113. 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION       309 

regulate  them,  but  doubtless  we  shall  fail;  the  only 
solution  of  the  problem  is  public  ownership.  This  need 
not  mean  public  management;  the  government  may 
own  the  tracks,  as  most  European  cities  own  the  tracks 
of  their  street  railways,  and  may  prescribe  rates  and 
regulations,  and  then  lease  them,  for  definite  terms,  to 
companies  or  syndicates  to  operate.  The  stock  objec- 
tion to  government  ownership  is  the  danger  of  adding 
such  an  enormous  number  of  employees  to  the  civil 
service;  but  that  is  not  a  necessary  condition.  The 
power  of  oppression  which  resides  in  the  private  owner- 
ship of  the  means  of  transportation  is  so  tremendous, 
and  so  impossible  of  regulation,  that  the  people  will  be 
compelled,  at  no  distant  day,  to  take  the  business  into 
their  hands.  I  think  that  it  will  also  be  necessary  for 
them  to  own  the  mines,  and  to  establish  a  rigid  super- 
vision over  the  watercourses.  And,  in  the  cities,  not 
only  the  water-supply,  but  the  lighting  and  the  trans- 
portation and  the  telephone  service,  will  soon  be 
brought  under  public  control. 

All  these  are  steps  in  the  direction  of  Socialism  which 
we  are  likely  to  take  at  no  distant  day.  All  the  indus- 
tries which  I  have  named  are  \'irtual  monopolies,  and 
the  people  must  own  all  the  monopolies.  That  is  the 
essence  of  democracy,  on  the  economic  side.  There 
must  be  no  monopolies  of  goods  or  services  necessary 
to  the  life  of  the  people  which  the  people  do  not  them- 
selves control.  If  democracy  is  to  endure,  it  must  assert 
and  maintain  this  prerogative. 

But,  after  this  principle  has  been  fully  established, 
there  will  still  remain  wide  areas  in  which  private  pro- 


310  RECOLLECTIONS 

perty  may  be  recognized  and  private  enterprise  liber- 
ated, —  in  which  indi\ddual  initiative  may  have  free 
play.  That  industrial  society  in  the  future  will  have 
large  features  of  collective  ownership  and  control,  and 
alongside  of  them  extensive  and  varied  enterprises  in 
which  men  are  emplojdng  their  owti  capital  and  manag- 
ing their  own  affairs,  seems  to  me  highly  probable.  The 
main  problem  of  statesmanship  will  be  to  draw  the  line 
between  these  two  industrial  methods,  to  know  what 
industries  can  best  be  taken  over  by  the  commonwealth 
and  what  can  best  be  left  in  private  hands.  We  shall 
cooperate,  more  and  more,  through  the  state,  for  com- 
mon purposes,  and  we  shall  make  vast  gains  by  that 
cooperation ;  but  we  shall  still  cultivate  the  virtues  of 
self-direction  and  self-reliance,  we  shall  still  keep  the 
privilege  of  choosing  our  own  careers,  and  of  expressing 
ourselves  freely  in  our  industries. 

But  in  this  coming  industrial  society,  where  freedom 
of  occupation  is  protected  and  cherished,  there  will  still 
be  need  of  a  guiding  law  for  industry,  and  there  can  be 
no  other  law  than  that  of  the  Christ.  In  those  days  as  in 
these,  the  law  of  human  association  must  be  the  law 
of  Good  Will.  The  good  of  Ufe  is  not  found  by  those 
who  prey  upon  one  another  or  plunder  one  another; 
it  is  found  only  by  those  who  in  friendship  serve  one 
another. 

The  existing  industrial  order  virtually  rests  upon  the 
assumption  that  it  is  every  man's  business  in  this  world 
to  get  for  himself  —  and,  of  course,  to  get  away  from  his 
neighbors  —  as  much  as  he  legally  and  prudently  and 
safely  can.   That  principle  of  life,  no  matter  how  art- 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTON        311 

fully  disguised,  nor  how  cautiously  practiced,  is  sure  to 
bring  strife  and  poverty  and  wretchedness.  Any  organ- 
ization of  society  which  is  founded  on  selfishness  will 
come  to  grief.  That  is  the  bottom  trouble  with  the 
industrial  world  to-day ;  and  the  only  radical  cure  for 
it  is  a  change  in  the  ruhng  principle  of  life.  The  stable 
and  fruitful  social  order  will  be  that  which  rests  on  the 
assumption  that  it  is  every  man's  business  to  give  as 
much  as  he  can,  prudently  and  safely,  and  with  due  re- 
gard to  his  own  integrity,  to  all  with  whom  he  deals. 
This  does  not  mean  that  he  is  to  cripple  or  impoverish 
himself  in  his  giving,  for  his  o^\ti  well-being  should  be 
precious  to  him,  and  he  must  not  give  in  such  a  way 
as  to  destroy  his  power  to  give.  Cases  may,  indeed, 
arise,  in  which  the  sacrifice  of  all  may  be  demanded ;  but 
the  ordinary  regimen  of  Ufe  will  require  him  to  husband 
his  power  of  service. 

This,  as  I  understand  it,  is  the  meaning  of  Christ's 
law  of  life.  It  is  not  his  law  because  he  originated  it ; 
it  is  his  because  he  most  clearly  taught  it,  and  most 
consistently  lived  by  it ;  because  he  made  it  central  in 
morality.  It  rests  on  no  man's  word;  it  is  as  truly  a 
natural  law  as  is  the  law  of  gravitation  or  the  laws  of 
chemical  affinity;  it  is  an  induction  from  the  facts  of 
human  nature.  Experience,  if  men  will  only  pay  atten- 
tion to  it,  will  prove  to  them  that  this  way  of  li\ing 
together  makes  for  universal  welfare  and  happiness; 
that  the  way  of  living  which  keeps  self  central  and 
supreme  is  the  way  to  destruction.  The  fundamental 
objection  to  the  world's  way  is  that  it  is  unnatural 
and  unscientific ;  it  is  an  inversion  of  life ;  it  is  Uke  an 


312  RECOLLECTIONS 

attempt  to  make  plants  grow  with  their  roots  in  the 
air  and  their  branches  on  the  earth. 

This  is  the  truth  which  the  world  is  beginning  to  see. 
It  is  only  as  in  a  blurred  mirror,  dimly,  that  most  men 
see  it  yet,  but  never  before  was  it  visible  to  so  many. 
The  conviction  is  steadily  strengthening  that  the  one 
thing  needful  is  a  change  in  the  direction  of  the  ruling 
motive  from  self-aggrandizement  to  service.  And  to  all 
who  will  carefully  study  the  prevaiHng  tendencies  it  will 
be  clear  that  this  is  the  way  the  world  is  going.  "One 
perceives,"  says  Mr.  Wells,  "something  that  goes  on, 
that  is  constantly  working  to  make  order  out  of  casualty, 
beauty  out  of  confusion,  justice,  kindhness,  mercy  out 
of  cruelty  and  inconsiderate  pressure.  For  our  present 
purpose  it  will  be  sufficient  to  speak  of  this  force  that 
struggles  and  tends  to  make  and  do,  as  Good  Will.  More 
and  more  e\ddent  it  is,  as  one  reviews  the  ages,  that 
there  is  much  more  than  lust,  hunger,  avarice,  vanity, 
and  more  or  less  intelligent  fear,  among  the  motives  of 
mankind.  The  Good  Will  of  our  race,  however  arising, 
however  trivial,  however  subordinated  to  individual 
ends,  however  comically  inadequate  a  thing  it  may  be 
in  this  individual  case  or  that,  is  in  the  aggi'egate  an 
operating  will.  In  spite  of  all  the  confusions  and  thwart- 
ings  of  life,  the  halts  and  resiliences  and  the  counter 
strokes  of  fate,  it  is  manifest  that,  in  the  long  nm, 
human  life  becomes  broader  than  it  was,  gentler  than  it 
was,  finer  and  deeper.  On  the  whole  —  and  nowadays 
almost  steadily  —  things  get  better.  There  is  a  secular 
amehoration  of  life,  and  it  is  brought  about  by  Good 
Will  working  through  the  efforts  of  men." 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION        313 

Good  Will  is  at  work,  and  it  is  making  things  better. 
In  spite  of  the  prevailing  social  philosophy,  it  is  gaining 
ground.  Even  now,  with  such  partial,  halting,  half- 
hearted recognition  as  we  give  it.  Good  Will  is  making 
things  better.  How  much  faster  things  would  grow 
better,  if  all  the  people  who  call  themselves  Christians 
would  accept  what  St.  James  calls  "The  Royal  Law," 
and  would  give  their  Uves  to  making  Good  Will  regnant 
among  men ! 

No  matter  what  the  form  of  the  social  organization 
may  be,  it  is  to  this  principle  of  Good  Will,  ruling  the 
Uves  of  individuals,  that  we  shall  owe  all  our  social  peace 
and  welfare.  Our  collectivism  will  be  confusion  and  a 
curse,  where  it  is  wanting ;  where  it  is  present,  our  in- 
dividual initiative  will  be  beneficence  and  bounty. 

Is  it  not  a  Utopian  dream  that  the  principle  of  Good 
Will  will  supplant  the  principle  of  Laissez  faire  in  indus- 
trial society?  Can  we  rationally  expect  that  such  an 
ingrained  tendency  of  human  nature  as  that  which  is 
represented  by  the  ma.xim  "Every  man  for  himself," 
will  yield  to  the  other-regarding  motive  so  that  men 
will  learn  to  identify  their  interests  with  those  of  their 
neighbors?  The  answer  is  that  when  men  see  that  Good 
Will  is  the  law,  they  will  learn  to  obey  it.  Most  of  them 
have  never  yet  clearly  seen  it.  The  maxims  of  business 
have  all  made  self-interest  supreme.  The  whole  indus- 
trial structure  has  rested  on  that  philosophy.  The  world 
is  beginning  to  see  that  Good  Will  makes  things  better. 
That,  so  far  as  the  business  world  is  concerned,  is  a  new 
revelation.  It  is  easy  enough  to  see  that  a  good  deal 
more  Good  Will  would  make  things  a  great  deal  better. 


314  RECOLLECTIONS 

That  is  a  fact  which  the  logic  of  events  will  force  upon 
the  convictions  of  men.  And  in  the  light  and  warmth 
of  that  knowledge  the  ingrained  egoism  of  human 
nature  will  slowly  melt  away. 

Such,  then,  is  the  substance  of  the  social  faith  which 
I  have  been  trying  to  inculcate. 

I  believe  that  monopoHes,  actual  or  virtual,  which 
supply  the  primary  wants  of  human  beings,  must  be 
owned  and  controlled  by  the  commonwealth. 

I  believe  that  in  this  way,  collective  ownership  and 
control  will  be  and  should  be  greatly  extended;  that 
many  of  the  industries  which  are  now  in  private  hands 
will  become  departments  of  the  public  service.  I  be- 
lieve that  such  cooperation  of  all  the  people  through  the 
state  will  result  in  great  economies,  and  will  put  an  end 
to  some  of  the  worst  oppressions. 

I  believe  that  when  we  have  gone  as  far  as  we  can 
safely  go  in  this  direction,  there  will  remain  large  room 
for  private  enterprise  which  will  offer  a  free  field  for 
the  cultivation  of  virtues  quite  essential  to  the  social 
welfare. 

I  believe  that  all  this  activity,  whether  organized  by 
the  state,  or  conducted  by  independent  enterprise,  must 
have  as  its  ruling  motive  the  principle  of  Good  Will,  the 
spirit  of  service;  that  the  church  by  its  ministry,  and 
the  school  by  its  training,  and  the  state  by  its  legisla- 
tion must  inculcate  and  enforce  the  doctrine  that  the 
primary  business  of  every  man  in  this  world  is  service  ; 
that  the  man  who  is  here  to  be  ministered  unto,  and  to 
levy  tribute  on  his  neighbors  for  his  own  aggrandize- 
ment, is  Uving  a  life  of  sin  and  shame. 


THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION       315 

When  this  principle  of  Good  Will  becomes  regnant, 
shall  we  see  wealth  increasing  as  it  has  been  increasing 
during  the  last  four  or  five  decades  ?  Certainly  not  in  the 
same  way.  In  a  society  in  which  the  Christian  law  was 
recognized  as  the  practical  rule,  there  could  be  no  such 
enormous  accumulations  in  the  hands  of  individuals  as 
those  which  have  been  heaped  up  in  the  last  twenty-five 
years.  Such  swollen  fortunes  are  the  symptoms  of  social 
disease;  they  have  the  same  relation  to  social  health 
that  hydrocephalus  or  elephantiasis  has  to  the  health 
of  the  individual,  and  to  all  sound  moral  vision  they 
are  not  less  repulsive.  It  is  profoundly  to  be  hoped  that 
the  day  of  their  prevalence  may  quickly  pass.  But  it  is 
probable  that  the  social  good  created  under  the  impulse 
of  Good  Will  would  be  far  more  widely  diffused ;  that 
in  the  greatly  enlarged  possessions  and  advantages  held 
in  common,  all  would  share ;  that  the  slums  would  dis- 
appear ;  that  family  life  would  be  more  secure  and  per- 
manent ;  that  the  crushing  burden  of  toil  would  be  lifted 
from  the  shoulders  of  Uttle  children ;  that  there  would 
be  leisure  and  comfort  and  happiness  among  men,  in 
which  faith  could  find  root  and  hope  get  some  anchor- 
age, and  in  which  it  would  not  be  incredible  that  love 
is  indeed  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

A  WIDENING  VOCATION 

That  low  man  seeks  a  little  thing  to  do, 

Sees  it  and  does  it: 
This  high  man,  with  a  great  thing  to  pursue, 

Dies  ere  he  knows  it. 
That  low  man  goes  on  adding  one  to  one, 

His  hundred 's  soon  hit : 
This  high  man,  aiming  at  a  million, 

Misses  an  unit. 
That,  has  the  world  here  —  should  he  need  the  next, 

Let  the  world  mind  him! 
This,  throws  himself  on  God,  and  unperplexed 

Seeking  shall  find  Him. 

Robert  Browning. 

The  presidential  campaign  of  1884  was  waged  with 
ardor  in  Ohio,  and  I  found  great  interest  in  watching 
the  poHtical  operations  on  this  field.  The  intensity  of 
the  partisanship  was  noteworthy;  it  was  difficult  for 
many  worthy  people  to  have  any  respect  for  a  man 
who  was  not  on  one  side  or  the  other.  Mr.  Blaine  came 
to  Ohio  and  made  a  sensational  canvass,  but  it  was 
impossible  for  me  to  vote  for  him ;  over  Mr.  Cleveland 
I  hesitated,  on  the  ground  of  the  moral  delinquencies 
charged  against  him.  His  perfect  manUness  in  the  treat- 
ment of  those  charges  ought  to  have  reassured  me,  and 
I  have  always  regretted  that  I  did  not  give  him  my 
vote ;  for  I  came  to  honor  and  trust  him  as  one  of  our 
bravest  and  most  conscientious  chief  magistrates. 

We  had  two  elections,  in  Ohio,  in  1884,  —  a  state 


A  WIDENING  VOCATION  317 

election  for  governor  and  state  officers,  in  October,  and 
the  presidential  election  in  November.  Ohio  was  thus 
regarded  as  one  of  the  "pivotal  states,"  and  the  ma- 
chinery of  both  the  national  parties  was  set  in  operation 
early  in  every  presidential  year  to  carry  the  state  at 
the  October  election.  This  gave  us  more  than  enough 
of  poUtics  for  that  year ;  it  kept  the  people  in  a  state  of 
excitement  from  June  to  November,  it  deranged  busi- 
ness, it  brought  into  the  state  a  great  deal  of  money  for 
the  use  of  the  politicians,  and  it  invited  the  colonization 
of  voters  from  the  surrounding  states.  Admittedly  it 
was  a  great  source  of  injury  to  the  state,  economically 
and  morally. 

With  this  conviction  I  undertook  to  get  the  constitu- 
tion amended,  so  that  the  state  election  should  be  held 
in  November.  Believing  that  the  movement  would  best 
succeed  if  quietly  started,  I  wrote  a  petition  for  such  a 
change,  and  secured  the  signatures  to  it  of  the  governor 
of  the  state,  George  Hoadley,  all  the  ex-governors  liv- 
ing but  one,  all  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the 
two  United  States  senators,  and  a  few  other  leading 
men.  Among  these  signatures  both  parties  were  about 
equally  represented.  The  petition  thus  signed  was  then 
printed  in  the  newspapers,  and  with  such  a  backing  the 
project  readily  commanded  the  attention  of  the  people. 
I  then  printed  copies  of  the  petition,  and  with  my 
own  hand  mailed  them  to  representative  men  in  every 
county.  The  matter  was  taken  up  everjrvN'here  promptly 
and  enthusiastically ;  petitions  with  thousands  of  names 
poured  in,  and  by  the  time  the  legislature  met,  in 
January,  the  sentiment  in  the  state  was  so  strong  that 


318  RECOLLECTIONS 

a  joint  resolution  was  easily  passed  submitting  the 
amendment  to  the  people,  to  be  voted  for  at  the  next 
election. 

In  preparing  the  ballots  for  the  election,  the  Demo- 
crats and  the  Prohibitionists  readily  agreed  to  print  only 
the  affirmative  vote,  so  that  those  who  did  not  scratch 
their  tickets  would  be  counted  as  voting  in  favor  of  the 
amendment.  The  Repubhcan  committee  refused  to  do 
this,  though  I  earnestly  besought  them.  The  grist  which 
would  come  to  the  mill  of  the  politicians  by  keeping  Ohio 
an  October  state  quite  outweighed,  in  their  minds,  the 
moral  injury  which  the  state  thus  suffered.  There  were, 
however,  enough  Republicans  who  took  pains  to  mark 
their  ballots  to  carry  the  amendment  by  a  decisive  ma- 
jority. Thus  a  rather  important  change  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  state  was  very  simply  effected.  No  eloquence 
nor  influence  was  called  for.  The  people  all  knew  what 
they  wanted ;  they  did  not  require  to  be  convinced  or 
persuaded ;  all  that  was  necessary  was  to  give  them  a 
chance  to  express  their  minds,  and  that  required  a  little 
painstaking  effort.  It  was  all  done  without  holding  a 
single  public  meeting,  or  making  a  speech,  or  appointing 
a  committee;  it  cost  me  a  few  dollars  for  postage  and 
printing,  and  it  cost  nobody  else,  so  far  as  I  know,  one 
cent. 

I  have  alluded  to  the  fact  that  the  disturbing  ques- 
tion of  what  is  knowTi  as  the  Higher  Criticism  had 
hardly  been  raised  in  New  England  at  the  beginning  of 
my  Springfield  ministry.  Before  my  work  in  Columbus 
began,  the  air  was  full  of  it.  The  epoch-making  book  of 


A  WIDENING  VOCATION  319 

Professor  Robertson  Smith,  "The  Old  Testament  in 
the  Jewish  Church,"  had  brought  it  before  intelligent 
men  with  a  clearness  which  made  it  impossible  to  ignore 
it.  The  traditional  conception  of  the  Bible  as  verbally 
and  scientifically  inerrant  was  made,  by  this  investiga- 
tion, untenable. 

My  work  in  Columbus  brought  me  into  contact  with 
many  young  men.  The  students  of  the  university  and  of 
the  medical  colleges  were  well  represented  in  my  congre- 
gations ;  of  the  evening  audiences  it  was  often  true  that 
two  thirds  were  men,  and  the  majority  of  them  young 
men.  My  acquaintance  with  them  revealed  the  fact  that 
many  of  them  were  skeptical  concerning  the  Bible. 
They  had  read  or  heard  the  popular  lectures  of  Robert 
Ingersoll ;  and  they  could  not  help  knowing  that  many 
of  the  statements  he  made  about  the  Bible  were  true ; 
they  had  looked  for  themselves,  and  had  found  the  dis- 
crepancies and  contradictions  all  there.  \Mien,  there- 
fore, they  were  told  by  their  pastors  and  teachers  that 
the  admission  of  a  single  error  in  the  Bible  rendered  it 
worthless,  they  saw  no  other  way  than  to  cast  it  aside, 
and  this  they  were  doing  by  scores  and  hundreds. 

As  one  who  was  convinced  that  the  Bible,  after  all  the 
truth  had  been  told  about  it,  would  still  remain  the  most 
precious  and  inspiring  book  in  the  world,  —  more  pre- 
cious and  inspiring  when  the  truth  had  been  told  about 
it  than  it  could  be  as  an  object  of  superstition,  —  I  could 
not  help  being  deeply  pained  by  the  growing  contempt 
for  the  Bible  which  I  could  not  help  observing,  and 
which,  as  I  perfectly  well  knew,  was  due  to  the  persistent 
attempt  to  force  upon  the  acceptance  of  men  a  theory 


320  RECOLLECTIONS 

of  its  origin  to  which  its  own  pages  gave  overwhehning 
contradiction.  I  knew  very  well,  however,  that  this  was 
a' very  sensitive  question  in  the  minds  of  many  excellent 
people.  The  infalhbility  of  the  Bible  seemed  to  them  the 
foundation  of  religion ;  if  that  were  gone,  nothing  would 
be  secure.  It  is  not  a  comfortable  business  to  raise  such 
questionings  in  honest  minds,  and  one  is  powerfully 
moved  to  accept  Tennyson's  counsel :  — 

Leave  thou  thy  sister  when  she  prays, 
Her  early  Heaven,  her  happy  views  ; 
Nor  thou  with  shadow'd  hint  confuse 

A  life  that  leads  melodious  days. 

But  there  are  others,  besides  that  sister  praying,  to 
whom  the  truth  is  due,  and  who  can  be  saved  only  by 
knowing  it ;  we  have  to  consider  the  needs  of  all  classes, 
and  we  must  not  doubt,  as  reUgious  teachers,  that  on 
the  whole,  and  in  the  long  run,  the  safest  thing  to  tell 
the  people  is  the  truth.  What  would  happen  to  me, 
as  the  consequence  of  telling  the  truth  about  the 
Bible,  I  did  not  know ;  there  were  grave  doubts  whether 
it  would  not  end  my  ministry  in  Columbus;  but  the 
duty  was  before  me,  and  I  could  not  evade  it  without 
cowardice  and  infidelity. 

The  series  of  Sunday  evening  lectures  which  were  af- 
terward pubhshed  in  a  volume  entitled  "Who  Wrote 
the  Bible?"  attracted  larger  audiences  than  any  course 
I  had  previously  given.  I  asked  my  auditors  to  reserve 
their  judgment  upon  the  argument  until  they  had  heard 
it  all.  They  seemed  to  think  that  a  reasonable  request, 
and  they  graciously  acceded  to  it,  and  there  was  no  ex- 
citement or  controversy  in  the  congregation  while  the 


A  WIDENING  VOCATION  321 

lectures  were  in  progress.  At  first  I  saw  many  troubled 
and  anxious  faces,  but  as  I  tried  to  tell  the  people  no- 
thing which  I  could  not  abundantly  make  good  on  the 
authority  of  the  Bible  itself,  they  were  soon  Ustening 
with  increasing  interest  and  sympathy.  At  the  close  I 
felt  that  I  had  the  nearly  undivided  assent  of  my  con- 
gregation to  the  truth  and  wisdom  of  the  exposition; 
those  from  whom  I  had  expected  opposition  were  most 
cordial  in  their  expressions  of  gratitude  for  the  service 
rendered  them ;  there  was  not  a  ripple  of  controversy 
over  the  matter  in  the  church.  We  are  sometimes  quite 
too  apprehensive,  brother  ministers,  about  the  risks  we 
run  in  telling  the  truth.  If  we  speak  it  kindly  and  con- 
siderately, with  due  regard  for  the  con\dctions  of  those 
who  differ  from  us,  truth-speaking  is  not  ordinarily  a 
dangerous  venture. 

"^^^lo  Wrote  the  Bible?"  has  had  the  largest  circula- 
tion of  all  my  books.  It  has  been  widely  used  as  a  man- 
ual of  instruction  in  Bible  classes,  and  in  Young  Men's 
Christian  Associations.  It  is  now  properly  regarded  as 
a  very  conservative  book;  such  careful  scholarship  as 
that  represented  in  Hastings's  "Dictionary  of  the  Bible  " 
leaves  many  of  its  positions  far  in  the  rear.  It  ought  to 
be  revised  and  brought  up  to  date,  but  I  fear  that  I  shall 
never  have  the  time  or  strength  for  that ;  it  will  have  to 
stand  as  it  is ;  there  are  still  multitudes  in  the  morass 
of  traditional  infalUbihsm  to  whom  it  may  furnish  a 
bridge  to  a  more  intelhgent  understanding  of  the  Bible. 

The  anxiety  about  a  fixed  standard  of  beUef  with 
which  many  minds  are  troubled  is  natural  enough,  but 
a  little  careful  thought  would  help  to  dispel  it.  To  many 


322  RECOLLECTIONS 

minds  "foundations  of  belief"  seem  to  be  indispensable. 
But  it  is  well  to  remember  that  some  things  need  no 
foundations.  The  old  cosmogonists  were  put  to  it  to  find 
foundations  for  the  earth.  Under  each  of  the  four  cor- 
ners of  it  they  put  a  colossal  elephant,  and  under  the 
elephant  a  tortoise,  and  under  the  tortoise  a  serpent,  and 
under  the  serpent  —  but  what  was  the  use  of  exploring 
further  ?  The  problem  had  to  be  given  up.  By  and  by 
Copernicus  helped  them  to  see  that  the  earth  needed  no 
foundation ;  that  it  was  moving  through  space  nineteen 
miles  a  second,  sustaining  itself  by  its  own  motion.  Our 
present  conception  of  its  relation  to  space  is  certainly 
far  more  sublime,  and  far  more  satisfying  to  the  mind, 
than  was  the  conception  of  the  old  cosmogonists.  We 
have  not  lost  respect  for  the  earth,  nor  confidence  in  it, 
since  we  have  found  out  the  truth  about  it.  The  founda- 
tions on  which  it  once  rested  are  gone,  and  we  do  not 
wish  to  restore  them. 

Is  not  something  like  this  coming  true  with  respect  to 
our  religious  beliefs?  We  have  clung  to  the  notion  that 
the  body  of  truth  must  have  a  fixed  and  stable  foun- 
dation, and  we  have  had  much  dispute  over  the  founda- 
tion, some  putting  the  church  in  that  place  and  some  the 
Bible.  It  is  now  beginning  to  be  evident  that  the  orb  of 
sacred  truth  needs  no  such  supports ;  that  it  is  moving 
with  resistless  power  through  the  eternities;  that  our 
task  is  not  to  bolster  it  up  or  anchor  it,  but  to  move  on 
wdth  it,  and  keep  our  eyes  open  for  the  new  constella- 
tions always  swimming  into  view.  The  ground  of  our 
faith  is  not  the  church  nor  the  Bible,  but  the  living 
God,  who  as  Inspirer  and  Leader  of  men  is  as  near  to 


A  WIDENING  VOCATION  323 

us  as  He  has  ever  been  to  the  men  of  any  generation, 
and  who,  if  we  will  trust  Him,  will  enable  us  to  draw 
from  the  messages  of  the  past  the  truth  that  we  need 
for  the  life  of  to-day.  Great  need  have  we  of  the  Book 
which  has  been  for  so  many  generations  our  guide  and 
counselor.  It  contains  the  record  of  that  continuous 
revelation  which  God  has  been  making  to  our  fathers 
in  the  flesh  and  in  the  spirit ;  it  is  the  only  Book  that 
tells  us  of  Him  from  whose  life  and  words  comes  all 
that  makes  this  age  significant.  But  we  need  to  read 
this  Book  in  the  light  of  this  day,  and  under  the  guid- 
ance of  the  same  Spirit  who  spake  by  the  prophets, 
and  who  speaks  to-day  to  all  w  ho  have  ears  to  hear. 

Few  experiences  of  the  last  twenty-five  years  are  more 
gratefully  recalled  than  those  which  have  brought  me 
into  contact  with  the  life  of  a  number  of  the  colleges  and 
universities  of  the  country.  It  has  been  my  happiness  to 
visit  many  of  them,  and  I  find  nowhere  audiences  so 
keenly  receptive  and  sympathetic.  Several  of  my  books 
owe  their  existence  to  demands  made  upon  me  by  these 
audiences.  In  1886  a  series  of  lectures  to  the  students 
of  our  own  Ohio  State  University,  on  fundamental  reli- 
gious truths,  was  reported  by  one  of  the  professors  for 
the  "Christian  Union,"  now  the  "Outlook,"  and  re- 
printed in  the  "Christian  World "  of  London.  The  pub- 
lishers of  the  latter  journal  proposed  to  gather  them  into 
a  volume,  and  "Burning  Questions"  was  thus  origi- 
nally published  in  London,  and  republished,  on  this 
side,  by  the  Century  Company.  In  1893  I  was  invited 
to  deliver  the  lectures  of  the  course  on  the  Lyman 


324  RECOLLECTIONS 

Beecher  Foundation  in  the  Divinity  School  of  Yale 
University.  Those  lectures,  part  of  which  were  afterward 
delivered  at  Cornell  University,  and  at  Mansfield  College 
in  Oxford  University,  in  England,  and  all  of  them  at 
Meadville  Theological  Seminary,  make  the  volume  enti- 
tled "Tools  and  the  Man ;  Property  and  Industry  under 
the  Christian  Law."  A  series  of  lectures  on  "Social 
Facts  and  Forces"  was  given  first  at  Chautauqua, 
then  at  Iowa  College  in  Grinnell,  and  afterward  on  the 
Ryder  Foundation  in  Chicago;  these  were  pubUshed 
under  this  title.  "Witnesses  of  the  Light"  is  a  course 
of  lectures  deUvered  before  the  students  of  Harvard 
University;  "Social  Salvation"  is  a  second  course  on 
the  Lyman  Beecher  Foundation  at  Yale;  and  "Chris- 
tianity and  Socialism"  consists  of  lectures  given  before 
the  students  of  Drew  Theological  Seminary.  The  weeks 
that  I  have  spent  in  these  great  institutions,  in  pleas- 
ant companionship  with  instructors  and  students,  are 
among  my  most  deUghtful  recollections. 

In  1893  I  was  invited  to  become  one  of  the  staff  of 
preachers  to  Harvard  University.  This  staff  consists  of 
six  men,  who  share  among  themselves  the  spiritual  over- 
sight of  the  students  of  the  University.  Each  man  is 
expected  to  spend  about  six  weeks  of  the  year  in  resi- 
dence at  the  University,  dividing  his  time  into  two 
terms,  one  before  and  one  after  Christmas.  He  takes  up 
his  residence  in  the  minister's  rooms  in  the  old  Wads- 
worth  House  in  the  College  Yard ;  he  conducts  prayers 
in  Appleton  Chapel  every  morning,  leads  a  vesper  ser- 
vice on  Thursday  afternoon,  and  preaches  in  the  Chapel 
on  Sunday  evening.  Every  week-day  he  is  expected  to 


A  WIDENING  VOCATION  325 

be  in  his  room  in  the  Wadsworth  House  for  two  or  three 
hours,  to  meet  any  students  who  may  wish  to  call  upon 
him,  and  he  is  permitted  to  make  himself  useful,  in  such 
ways  as  he  may  choose,  in  the  University  community. 
I  have  had  the  happiness  of  serving  three  years  in  this 
capacity,  and  the  experience  is  memorable.  The  public 
service  has  always  been  grateful  and  rewarding.  I  have 
never  conducted  worship  in  any  place  where  the  decorum 
was  more  perfect  or  the  attention  more  reverent  than  at 
morning  prayers  in  Appleton  Chapel.  I  have  never  seen 
a  sign  of  a  book  or  a  newspaper  during  the  services.  In 
the  responsive  reading  and  in  the  singing  the  students 
join  heartily.  Attendance  is,  of  course,  voluntary ;  no 
one  is  there  who  does  not  wish  to  be. 

The  best  part  of  the  preacher's  work,  however,  is  his 
personal  contact  with  the  students.  All  this,  too,  on 
their  part,  is  voluntary;  he  meets  only  those  who  wish 
to  meet  him.  They  come,  as  Phillips  Brooks  said,  with 
all  sorts  of  questions;  "some  are  inquiring  the  way  to 
the  bursar's  office,  and  some  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 
Not  a  few  of  them  have  theological  tangles  which  they 
want  straightened  out.  "I  want  to  know,"  said  one 
young  fellow,  "how  you  reconcile  the  first  chapters  of 
Genesis  with  what  they  teach  us  here  about  geology." 
"They  cannot  be  reconciled,"  I  replied.  "That  story  in 
Genesis  is  not  science ;  it  is  a  beautiful  h)Tnn  of  the  cre- 
ation, full  of  the  noblest  religious  truth,  but  not  a  scien- 
tific account  of  how  the  world  came  to  be."  "I  think," 
he  said  slowly,  "that  if  my  father  should  hear  you  say 
that,  he  would  tell  you  that  you  are  an  infidel."  The 
father,  as  the  boy  told  me,  was  a  high  officer  in  a  leading 


326  RECOLLECTIONS 

Protestant  church  in  one  of  our  great  cities.  But  the 
son  had  never  heard,  from  his  father,  nor  from  his  Sun- 
day-school teachers,  nor  from  his  minister,  one  word 
about  the  subject  which  was  now  disturbing  his  thought, 
and  he  went  away  from  me,  I  know,  full  of  misgivings  as 
to  whether  he  had  not  done  wrong  in  Ustening  to  what  I 
tried  to  tell  him.  In  such  a  benighted  state  of  mind  as 
this  our  youth  are  still  often  left  by  those  whose  business 
it  is  to  teach  them  the  rudiments  of  rehgion.  I  found 
among  the  students  of  Harvard  not  a  few  whose  rehgious 
ideas  were  astonishingly  crude.  A  tragedy  it  is  when  a 
boy  who  has  had  his  eyes  bandaged  from  his  infancy  is 
led  into  the  noonday  blaze  of  a  modem  university.  Are 
those  pastors  and  Sunday-school  teachers  of  this  coun- 
try, who  are  feeding  their  young  people  upon  traditions 
which  modern  science  has  outlawed,  aware  that  these 
young  people  are  soon  going  out  into  the  world  ? 

It  was  not,  however,  for  theological  instruction  that 
most  of  these  young  men  came  to  the  minister.  There 
were  serious  problems  of  personal  conduct  on  which 
some  of  them  wanted  counsel;  I  began  to  imderstand 
the  value  of  the  confessional.  They  came  to  me  on  such 
errands  much  more  freely  than  the  young  men  of  my 
own  city  and  congregation  have  been  wont  to  come,  — 
partly,  perhaps,  because  I  was  more  nearly  a  stranger ; 
partly  because  they  were  away  from  home  and  felt  the 
need  of  friendship.  But  the  largest  class  of  my  visitors 
was  composed  of  those  who  sought  counsel  about  their 
life-work.  There  were  many  who  had  not  yet  determined 
what  calling  to  follow ;  there  were  many  others  who  had 
chosen  their  work  and  wanted  to  talk  about  the  best  way 
of  preparing  for  it. 


A  WIDENING  VOCATION  327 

One  fact  deeply  impressed  me,  —  that  was  the  extent 
to  which  the  idea  of  service  appeared  to  be  the  control- 
ling idea  in  the  minds  of  these  young  men.  The  note  of 
personal  ambition  was  sometimes  struck,  but  it  was  not 
the  prevailing  note ;  the  emphasis  was  put  upon  the  de- 
sire to  find  something  to  do  which  would  be  worth  some- 
thing to  the  w^orld.  No  doubt  it  will  be  said  that  men  of 
this  spirit  would  be  the  only  ones  Ukely  to  come  and  see 
a  minister ;  but  I  am  not  quite  sure  of  this ;  my  experi- 
ence in  other  places  does  not  justify  that  judgment ;  I 
have  found  people  of  all  ages  quite  ready  to  come  to  me 
for  counsel  and  help  in  pushing  their  selfish  ambitions. 
But  the  seeming  drift  of  the  young  fellows  whom  I  met 
in  Harvard  toward  altruistic  aims  was  a  phenomenon 
in  which  I  have  found  much  encouragement.  And  all 
my  experience  with  college  students,  which  has  been 
considerable,  strengthens  my  belief  that  the  generation 
of  educated  men  and  women  now  coming  upon  the  scene 
possesses  a  more  sensitive  social  conscience  than  the 
generation  which  is  disappearing. 

This  privilege  of  service  in  Harvard  University  I 
recall  as  one  of  the  best  things  that  has  ever  come  to 
me.  It  was  with  much  regret  that  I  was  constrained  to 
decline  a  reelection  to  this  service.  The  distance  from 
home  was  great,  and  the  absence  from  my  pastoral 
work  for  six  weeks  of  the  year  was  a  matter  so  serious 
that  I  felt  obliged  to  reUnquish  the  delightful  task.  It  is 
only  fair  to  my  own  people,  however,  to  say  that  their 
behavior  in  the  matter  was  most  generous ;  twice  they 
overruled  my  own  decision  and  bade  me  go,  when  I  was 
not  so  minded. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE   MUNICIPAL   PROBLEM 

Even  here  do  I  behold 
Thy  steps,  Almighty!  —  here  amidst  the  crowd 

Through  that  great  city  rolled, 
With  everlasting  murmur  deep  and  loud  — 

Choking  the  ways  that  wind 
'Mongst  the  proud  piles,  the  work  of  human  kind. 

Thy  Spirit  is  around 
Quickening  the  restless  mass  that  sweeps  along; 

And  this  eternal  sound  — 
Voices  and  footfalls  of  the  numberless  throng  — 

Like  the  resounding  sea. 
Or  like  the  rainy  tempest,  speaks  of  Thee. 

William  Cullen  Bryant. 

The  problems  of  municipal  reform  began  to  engage 
my  interest  at  an  early  day.  The  city  government  of 
Columbus,  in  the  first  year  of  my  residence  here,  was  in 
a  very  chaotic  condition ;  its  parts  did  not  cohere,  and 
there  was  no  concentration  of  responsibility ;  the  mayor 
served  as  the  police  justice,  but  he  had  little  executive 
power.  The  need  of  a  better  organization  was  palpa- 
ble, and  the  people  were  beginning  to  agitate  for  a  new 
charter,  but  the  matter  drifted  from  bad  to  worse  for 
several  years.  The  formation  of  a  Board  of  Trade,  which 
was  intended  to  promote  the  general  welfare  of  the 
municipahty,  encouraged  the  hope  of  better  things,  and 
I  sought  the  opportunity  of  reading  before  that  body 
of  business  men  a  short  paper  urging  the  appointment 


THE  MUNICIPAL  PROBLEM  329 

of  a  strong  committee  to  study  the  problem,  and  draft 
a  new  charter.  Such  a  committee  was  appointed,  and 
spent  some  years  in  the  investigation,  but  there  was  no 
practical  outcome. 

At  this  time  Seth  Low  was  mayor  of  Brooklyn,  and 
that  city  had  adopted  a  reformed  charter,  which  con- 
centrated executive  responsibility  and  seemed  to  be 
resulting  in  efficient  administration.  At  my  suggestion 
the  Columbus  University  Club  invited  Mr.  Low  to  speak 
upon  Municipal  Problems,  and  he  accepted  the  invi- 
tation, giving  an  admirable  address  in  the  First  Con- 
gregational church  to  an  interested  audience. 

About  this  time  the  general  looseness  and  inefficiency 
of  our  municipal  governments  began  to  excite  much  at- 
tention, and  organizations  were  formed  in  some  of  the 
cities  for  the  agitation  of  this  question.  Beheving  that 
the  time  was  ripe  for  a  full  discussion  of  the  matter,  the 
editor  of  the  "Century  Magazine"  authorized  me  to 
take  it  up  in  a  treatment  similar  to  that  of  the  Chris- 
tian League  of  Connecticut,  and  the  story  of  "The  Cos- 
mopoHs  City  Club"  ran  through  three  numbers  of  that 
magazine.  It  was  an  imaginary  tale,  showing  how  a 
group  of  men  in  an  American  city  organized  a  club  for 
the  study  of  municipal  conditions;  how  they  inves- 
tigated and  exposed  abuses,  and  how  they  threshed 
out  among  themselves  the  whole  problem  of  municipal 
organization.  The  papers  were  published  in  a  small  vol- 
ume, in  1893. 

That  this  discussion  came  in  at  the  nick  of  time  is 
evident  from  the  reports  of  movements  in  all  parts  of 
the  country  during  these  years,  looking  toward  improve- 


330  RECOLLECTIONS 

ment  of  municipal  conditions.  A  manual  of  such  or- 
ganizations, published  in  1895,  gives  the  names  of  five 
municipal  leagues  formed  in  1892,  nine  in  1893,  and 
twenty-six  in  1894.  One  of  the  societies  formed  in  the 
last-named  year  was  the  National  Municipal  League, 
which  aimed  to  federate  the  local  leagues,  and  unite 
their  studies  and  efforts  for  better  city  government.  This 
organization  grew  out  of  a  conference  held  in  Phila- 
delphia in  January  of  that  year,  in  which  I  participated. 
I  also  had  the  honor  to  be  invited  to  take  part  in  the 
organization  of  the  City  Club  of  New  York ;  and  at  the 
meeting  in  which  the  Civic  Federation  of  Chicago  w^as 
formed,  it  was  stated  that  the  story  of  the  "CosmopoHs 
City  Club"  had  been  influential  in  awakening  the  in- 
terest which  had  resulted  in  that  meeting. 

While  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  at  the  head  of  the  Police 
Commission  in  New  York  city,  I  made  his  acquaintance, 
through  a  letter  which  he  wrote  me ;  and  at  my  request 
he  came  to  Columbus  and  gave  an  address,  reciting  his 
experience  in  that  difficult  situation,  and  discussing, 
with  the  lucidity  and  force  which  are  characteristic  of 
his  utterances,  the  problems  of  municipal  administra- 
tion. 

The  problems  of  municipal  organization  to  which 
most  of  the  leagues  and  clubs  have  given  much  of  their 
time  are  of  great  perplexity.  We  are  far  from  having 
solved  it  yet ;  I  sometimes  doubt  w^hether  we  have  made 
much  progress  toward  the  solution.  The  rapid  growth 
of  our  cities  has  been  one  main  cause  of  the  difficulty. 
The  municipal  machinery  which  answered  well  in  a  semi- 
rural  community  of  four  or  five  thousand  people  became 


THE  MUNICIPAL  PROBLEM  331 

utterly  inadequate  for  the  management  of  a  population 
of  fifty  or  one  hundred  thousand.  The  methods  have 
not  changed  so  rapidly  as  the  needs  have  developed. 

There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  experimentation  with 
executive  boards  and  commissions,  by  which  responsi- 
bility is  divided  and  scattered.  Nothing  of  that  kind 
is  risked  in  business  affairs;  three  or  five  heads  of  a 
department  in  a  railway  or  an  iron  mill  would  never  be 
thought  of.  A  single  head  of  an  executive  department 
is  the  rule  of  efficient  business  administration.  It  is 
only  in  municipal  business  that  this  tangle  is  tolerated. 
Bipartisan  boards  and  commissions  have  also  been  a 
frequent  resort  of  those  who  feared  the  spoilsmen,  but 
they  are  a  lame  device ;  usually  they  spend  a  good  share 
of  their  time  wrangling  over  the  patronage.  Worst  of  all 
are  the  attempts  to  rob  the  cities  of  the  right  to  govern 
themselves,  by  erecting  state  commissions  for  the  con- 
trol of  municipal  business. 

The  Brooklyn  plan,  of  which  Mayor  Low  was  an  able 
advocate  and  an  admirable  exponent,  contemplated  the 
concentration  in  the  mayor  of  executive  responsibiUty, 
giving  him  the  right  to  apj3oint  and  remove  the  heads 
of  city  departments.  Thus  the  police  department,  the 
fire  department,  the  water-works,  the  streets  and  sewers, 
the  health  department,  each  was  under  a  single  head 
who  was  directly  responsible  to  the  mayor,  and  who  was 
required  not  only  to  report  to  him,  but  to  consult  stat- 
edly with  him  and  with  the  other  heads  of  departments 
about  the  work  of  the  city.  The  power  of  the  purse  still 
was  left  with  the  city  council,  chosen  by  the  people ; 
and  two  or  three  other  officers  —  a  clerk,  an  auditor, 


332  RECOLLECTIONS 

and  a  treasurer,  perhaps  —  were  elected  in  the  same 
way. 

This  plan,  which  has  been  styled,  not  very  felicitously, 
the  Federal  plan,  seems  to  me  in  its  general  features  far 
better  than  the  scheme  of  parceling  out  the  executive 
power  among  hydra-headed  boards  and  commissions. 
When  it  has  been  permitted  to  stand  long  enough  to 
test  its  operation,  it  has  given  reasonably  good  results. 
It  is  not  a  panacea.  It  is  entirely  possible  to  have  very 
bad  government  under  this  or  any  other  form  of  muni- 
cipal organization.  The  people  may  be  so  careless  or 
so  infatuated  as  to  choose  an  incompetent  or  a  malign 
person  for  mayor ;  this  system  gives  him  the  power  to 
do  vast  injury.  In  fact,  any  system  which  enables  a 
good  officer  to  be  efficient,  necessarily  enables  a  bad 
officer  to  do  great  mischief.  The  best  when  perverted 
always  becomes  the  worst.  Unfortunately  our  govern- 
mental methods  have  been  largely  contrived  with  the 
possible  mischief  always  in  sight,  and  with  the  main 
purpose  to  avoid  that.  In  preventing  that,  they  have 
necessarily  crippled  the  efficiency  of  the  good  officer. 
The  question  is  whether,  on  the  whole,  it  is  not  better 
to  calculate  on  having  good  officers,  and  to  arrange  our 
governmental  machinery  with  this  contingency  in  view. 
In  that  case  we  may  have  good  and  efficient  govern- 
ment ;  in  the  other  case  we  never  can.  And  when  the 
people  have  had  a  chance  to  become  thoroughly  fa- 
miliar with  the  fact  that  everything  depends  on  their 
choice  of  a  competent  and  upright  chief  magistrate,  they 
are  likely  to  take  pains  to  select  such  an  one,  and  to 
keep  him  in  power. 


THE  MUNICIPAL  PROBLEM  333 

What  is  knov^Ti  as  the  Galveston  or  Des  Moines  plan 
of  municipal  government  is  now  exciting  much  discus- 
sion, and  it  is  possible  that  in  this  device  we  are  ap- 
proaching a  more  satisfactory  solution  of  this  difficult 
problem.  Doubtless  this  seems  a  drastic  method.  To 
sweep  away  the  entire  fabric  of  municipal  organization, 
and  commit  the  whole  legislative  and  executive  business 
of  the  city  to  five  men  chosen  by  the  people  —  giving 
them  the  power  to  frame  all  the  laws  and  ordinances,  to 
raise  and  expend  revenues,  to  appoint  all  the  subordinate 
officials,  and  to  manage  and  control  all  the  business 
of  the  city — is  a  reform  so  radical  that  it  takes  away 
one's  breath.  But  it  is  not  impossible  that  it  may  prove 
to  be  the  way  out  of  the  wilderness.  The  experiments 
which  a  few  of  our  cities  are  trying  with  this  plan  will 
be  watched  with  keen  interest. 

The  choice  of  a  quintuple  instead  of  a  single  head  for 
the  city  government  may  seem  to  contradict  what  has 
just  been  said  about  boards  and  commissions,  but  this 
is  not  really  the  case,  for  the  five  men  are  by  law  com- 
manded to  divide  the  administration  among  them- 
selves, one  of  them  being  made  chief  executive,  and  each 
one  being  placed  at  the  head  of  a  department  of  the 
city,  for  the  conduct  of  which  he  is  held  responsible. 
It  is  for  legislative  purposes,  mainly,  that  the  five  act 
together. 

Between  such  a  plan  as  this  and  that  by  which  all 
English  cities  are  governed,  —  where  the  supreme 
power  is  vested  in  a  council  of  from  thirty  to  one  hun- 
dred and  forty  members,  chosen  by  the  people,  and 
where  each  department  is  controlled  by  a  committee 


334  RECOLLECTIONS 

of  the  council,  —  the  contrast  is  striking.  The  EngUsh 
plan  works  well  in  England,  but  all  American  experience 
indicates  that  it  would  be  a  failure  here.  What  makes  it 
efficient  there  is  the  fact  that  under  each  council  com- 
mittee is  an  executive  officer  whose  tenure  is  practically 
permanent,  by  whom  the  committee  is  advised  and 
through  whom  its  work  is  carried  on.  There  is  thus  in 
practical  charge  of  each  city  department  a  skilled  and 
trained  executive,  who  is  never  changed  for  political 
reasons,  who  holds  his  position  as  long  as  he  proves 
his  efficiency.  Such  a  state  of  things  as  that  would 
never,  of  course,  be  tolerated  in  any  American  commu- 
nity, where  the  principle  of  rotation  in  office  generally 
overrides  all  considerations  of  efficient  administration. 
What  we  Americans  are  most  concerned  about  is  not 
how  we  shall  secure  good  government,  but  how  we  shall 
give  the  largest  possible  number  of  people  a  chance  to 
take  a  hand  in  the  government,  and  secure  the  emolu- 
ments thereof.  That  appears  to  be  the  American  idea ; 
and  while  it  prevails  we  shall  never,  of  course,  have 
good  municipal  government. 

WTiat  would  the  people  of  an  American  city  say,  for 
instance,  to  the  proposition  to  choose  sixty  or  eighty 
or  one  hundred  of  their  leading  business  and  professional 
men  to  seats  in  the  city  council,  —  with  the  under- 
standing that  many  of  these  men  would  continue  to 
serve  the  city  in  this  capacity  without  compensation 
for  ten,  twenty,  thirty  years  ?  And  what  would  these 
leading  business  and  professional  men  of  the  American 
cities  themselves  have  to  say  to  such  a  proposition? 
Is  it  not  obvious  that  a  scheme  of  this  sort  would  be 


THE  MUNICIPAL  PROBLEM  335 

utterly  "un-American"?  We  cannot  therefore  consider 
the  British  plan  of  municipal  government.  We  shall 
have  to  invent  a  system  more  in  accordance  with 
American  ideas  of  the  obligations  of  citizenship.  Perhaps 
the  Des  Moines  plan  will  prove  to  be  more  practicable. 

One  or  two  advantages  it  will  certainly  possess.  In 
the  first  place,  it  will  narrow,  somewhat,  the  field  of 
responsibility.  Even  under  what  is  called  the  Federal 
plan,  where  executive  responsibility  is  concentrated  in 
the  mayor,  there  is  apt  to  be  a  lack  of  harmony  be- 
tween the  mayor  and  the  council,  and  legislation  and 
administration  are  often  obstructed  by  such  conflicts. 
In  the  Des  Moines  plan,  deadlocks  of  this  kind  would  be 
avoided.  At  any  rate,  the  field  of  observation  for  the 
people  would  be  so  small  that  they  could  easily  keep 
their  eyes  on  the  whole  of  it.  If  anything  went  wrong, 
it  would  not  be  difficult  to  find  out  who  was  to  blame 
for  it. 

Another  obvious  advantage  is  in  the  fact  that  the 
people  would  have  to  choose  but  five  men  to  govern 
them,  instead  of  the  score  or  more  whom  they  are  now 
usually  called  upon  to  select  as  their  representatives. 
There  would  be  some  chance  that  they  could  gain  some 
intelHgent  opinions  about  the  qualifications  of  the  men 
for  whom  they  were  voting.  I  have  never  yet  met  a 
man  who  would  maintain,  when  narrowly  questioned, 
that  he  had  ever  voted  intelligently  in  any  municipal 
election ;  that  there  had  ever  been  an  occasion  in  which 
he  had  had  full  and  satisfactory  information  respecting 
the  character  and  the  capacity  of  every  candidate  for 
whom  he  voted.  We  often  know  three  or  four  of  them 


336  RECOLLECTIONS 

fairly  well,  but  most  of  them  are  names  which  represent 
nothing;  we  take  them  on  the  recommendation  of  the 
pohtical  machine.  Li  this  matter  the  British  voter  has 
an  immense  advantage  over  us.  Each  man  votes  for  his 
own  member  of  council,  —  the  member  who  represents 
the  district  in  which  he  Uves ;  this  is  all  he  has  to  do. 
He  may,  without  much  difficulty,  become  instructed  re- 
specting the  qualifications  of  this  one  man.  It  is  evident 
that  voting,  in  British  municipalities,  is  a  far  more  in- 
telligent business  than  in  most  of  ours.  But  under  the 
Des  Moines  plan,  where  there  were  only  five  men  to 
be  voted  for,  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  the  merits  of 
these  men  would  be  canvassed,  and  that  the  choice 
of  them  would  represent  more  knowledge  and  judgment 
than  usually  finds  expression  in  municipal  elections 
under  present  conditions. 

It  will  be  found,  however,  that  no  plan  can  be  devised 
which  will  give  us  good  city  government,  so  long  as  the 
great  majority  of  our  citizens  are  unwilling  to  take  any 
responsibihty  for  the  government  of  our  cities.  It  is  not 
the  fashion,  in  America,  for  men  of  substance  and  stand- 
ing to  take  any  active  part  in  the  administration  of  city 
affairs.  Many  of  them  seem  to  think  it  bad  form  to 
interest  themselves  in  such  matters ;  more  of  them  feel 
that  they  cannot  afford  the  sacrifice  of  their  business 
interests  which  such  a  service  would  require  of  them. 
So  long  as  an3rthing  resembling  this  is  true,  we  shall, 
of  course,  have  bad  government  in  our  cities.  We  are 
shirking  the  primary  obfigations  of  our  democracy,  and 
we  shall  get  our  deserts. 

Some  sense  of  these  obHgations  constrained  me,  in  the 


THE  MUNICIP.AX  PROBLEM  337 

spring  of  1900,  to  take  upon  myself  a  task  for  which  I 
could  claim  no  special  fitness,  and  which  might  have 
been  far  better  performed  by  some  of  my  neighbors.  In 
conversation  with  the  editor  of  one  of  our  daily  papers, 
I  was  told  that  a  ring  had  been  formed  among  the  mem- 
bers of  the  city  council  whose  terms  were  then  expiring, 
to  reelect  themselves  and  to  levy  tribute,  in  the  coming 
council,  upon  those  public-service  corporations  which 
would  be  applying  to  that  council  for  an  extension  of 
their  franchises.  My  informant  seemed  to  believe  that 
a  corrupt  understanding  had  been  or  was  likely  to  be 
reached  between  these  corporations,  and  a  combination 
by  means  of  which  the  interests  and  rights  of  the  people 
would  be  sacrificed.  It  was  also  represented  that  the 
member  of  the  council  from  my  ward  was  in  the  ring. 
How  much  truth  there  was  in  this  report  I  never  have 
known;  probably  it  represented  the  imaginations  of 
some  who  wished  to  have  it  come  true.  But  there  seemed 
to  be  reason  for  fear,  under  the  circumstances,  that 
corrupt  considerations  would  be  employed  in  the  busi- 
ness of  the  council  at  its  next  session.  Without  taking 
counsel  with  any  one,  I  announced  the  next  day,  over 
my  own  signature,  in  all  the  daily  papers,  that  if  the 
people  of  the  Seventh  Ward  desired  to  have  me  serve 
them  the  next  term  in  the  city  council,  I  would  endeavor 
to  do  so.  This  was  all  that  I  found  it  necessary  to  do. 
My  neighbors  took  up  the  matter  and  elected  me;  not 
only  did  I  make  no  canvass  for  the  place,  I  scarcely 
mentioned  the  matter  in  conversation  to  any  one. 

In  April,  1900, 1  took  up  the  duties  of  this  office,  and 
served  in  it  for  two  years.   This  involved  attendance 


338:  RECOLLECTIONS 

upon  the  regular  meetings  of  the  council  on  ^londay 
evenings,  and  upon  the  meetings  of  the  committees  on 
Friday  evenings  —  two  evenings  of  every  week.  It  in- 
volved, also,  of  course,  the  devotion  of  much  time  to  the 
business  of  the  city  outside  of  the  meetings ;  for  I  was 
made  chairman  of  one  important  committee  and  a 
member  of  three  others.  It  precluded  absence  from 
the  city  for  more  than  a  few  days  at  a  time ;  my  usual 
summer  vacation  had  to  be  foregone.  Altogether  it 
added  much  to  the  burden  of  one  whose  hfe  was  already 
pretty  heavily  encumbered. 

I  did  not,  however,  find  the  service  in  any  sense  a 
hardship.  From  the  beginning  it  was  extremely  interest- 
ing to  me.  There  were  three  young  lawyers,  one  phy- 
sician, three  or  four  small  business  men,  —  grocers,  retail 
coal-dealers,  and  so  forth;  five  or  six  clerks  or  book- 
keepers, and  two  or  three  saloon-keepers.  We  could 
hardly  claim  for  ourselves  that  we  represented  the  in- 
telligence, the  business  sagacity,  or  the  administrative 
experience  of  the  community.  There  were  very  few  of 
us  who  had  ever  given  any  study  or  thought  to  the 
problems  of  municipal  organization.  There  were  one  or 
two  of  us  who  were  often  forced  to  cry  out  in  wonder 
that  a  city  of  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  people 
should  be  willing  to  intrust  its  great  concerns  to  such 
a  body  of  men  as  we  were. 

For  great  matters  were  coming  before  us  for  our 
decision.  The  street-railway  franchises  were  expiring, 
and  it  was  necessary  for  us  to  make  a  new  contract  with 
that  company.  The  same  was  true  of  the  company 
which  supplied  us  with  natural  gas.   The  city  had  a 


THE  MUNICIPAL  PROBLEM  339 

small  electric  lighting  plant,  and  the  time  had  come  to 
determine  whether  it  should  be  enlarged  or  abandoned. 
Several  interurban  electric  railways  were  seeking  en- 
trance to  the  city,  and  charters  must  be  granted  them. 
The  w^ater-supply  of  the  city  was  lamentably  inadequate, 
and  steps  must  be  taken  to  replenish  it.  The  sewage 
was  defiling  the  river,  and  the  towns  below  were  crying 
to  us  for  protection.  Here  were  interests  of  tremendous 
importance  committed  to  us  for  our  care  and  further- 
ance; did  we  know  enough  to  deal  with  them  intelli- 
gently and  efficiently  ?  I  am  sure  that  there  were  quite 
a  number  of  us  who  had  not  the  slightest  misgiving 
about  their  entire  competency  to  handle  such  matters, 
but  there  were  a  few  of  us,  at  least,  who  could  not  help 
being  appalled  by  the  magnitude  and  intricacy  of  the 
tasks  before  us. 

My  associates  in  the  council  were  disposed,  on  the 
whole,  to  treat  me  courteously.  At  first  there  was  ap- 
parent sh}Tiess  and  suspicion  in  certain  quarters,  but 
that  soon  disappeared,  and  the  tinge  of  sarcasm  which 
once  or  twice  in  the  early  days  was  heard  in  some  allu- 
sion to  my  calfing,  was  dropped  when  it  became  clear 
that  no  notice  would  be  taken  of  it.  It  seemed  to  be 
expected,  when  I  entered  the  council,  that  I  would  be  a 
speech-maker;  but  I  did  not  find  it  necessary  to  con- 
sume much  of  the  time  of  the  sessions  in  this  way ;  it 
was  better  to  depend  on  personal  conference  with  mem- 
bers in  carr}dng  any  measures  in  which  I  was  interested. 
On  the  whole,  my  relations  with  my  colleagues  were 
altogether  cordial.  Good  order  prevailed  at  our  meet- 
ings, and  there  were  few  occasions  upon  which  the 


340  RECOLLECTIONS 

decorum  of  the  council  was  marred  by  any  unseemly 
conduct. 

The  &st  important  business  on  our  hands  was  the 
legislation  called  for  by  four  or  five  electric  trolley-lines 
seeking  entrance  to  the  city  and  terminal  privileges; 
that  was  disposed  of  with  reasonable  expedition  and 
upon  terms  advantageous  to  the  city.  Next  came  our 
local  street-railway  company  with  a  demand  for  the 
extension  of  its  franchises.  It  was  a  strong  company, 
with  a  capitalization  of  about  ten  million  dollars,  and 
the  interests  which  it  represented  were,  of  course,  very 
powerful.  Such  companies  are  not,  so  far  as  I  have  ob- 
served, in  the  philanthropic  line ;  they  wish  to  make 
as  good  a  bargain  as  they  can  for  themselves.  The 
proposition  which  the  company  submitted  involved 
but  a  slight  concession  in  the  way  of  reduced  fares ; 
and  the  counsel  of  the  company  prepared  an  elaborate 
statement,  showing,  by  statistics  gathered  from  many 
sources,  that  it  was  impossible  to  make  any  reduction. 
The  inaccuracy  of  this  statement  was  easily  exposed; 
my  studies  of  the  street-railway  problem  had  put  me  in 
possession  of  the  facts ;  and,  in  a  letter,  printed  the  next 
day  in  all  the  newspapers,  I  made  it  plain  to  the  people 
that  there  was  a  mass  of  experience  accessible  to  all 
of  them,  showing  that  the  company  could  well  afford 
materially  to  reduce  its  fares.  The  demonstration  was 
not  called  in  question,  and  from  that  time  it  was  pretty 
w^eU  settled  that  the  people  would  not  accept  any  con- 
tract with  the  company  which  did  not  greatly  reduce 
the  cost  of  street  transportation.  A  long  and  sharp 
struggle  ensued,  the  result  of  which  was  the  adoption 


THE  IVIUNICIPAL  PROBLE.AI  341 

of  a  contract  which,  although  it  is  less  favorable  in  some 
features  than  some  of  us  desired,  is  yet,  on  the  whole, 
the  best  that  I  know  of  in  any  American  city.  Our 
people  buy  for  twenty-five  cents  seven  tickets,  which 
permit  transfers  in  any  direction;  and  after  the  gross 
receipts  have  reached  a  certain  sum,  which  is  not  far 
off,  the  number  will  be  increased  to  eight. 

The  saving  of  a  cent  and  a  half  or  two  cents  on  a 
street-railway  fare  seems  a  small  matter  to  contend  for; 
but  it  is  such  small  matters  that  make  a  difference,  with 
people  of  small  incomes,  between  health  and  feeble- 
ness, between  decency  and  squalor,  between  hope  and 
despondency.  Take  the  case  of  a  laboring-man  with  a 
family  of  five,  living  at  some  distance  from  work  and 
market  and  school.  It  is  a  safe  calculation  that  a  differ- 
ence between  a  five-cent  fare  and  a  three-cent  fare  may 
make  a  difference  to  this  family  of  fifteen  cents  a  day, 
one  dollar  and  five  cents  a  week,  fifty-four  dollars  and 
sixty  cents  a  year.  That  may  mean  quite  a  substantial 
addition  to  the  amount  of  nourishing  food ;  it  may  mean 
a  Sunday  suit  for  the  man  and  a  decent  gown  for  the 
woman,  and  clothes  and  shoes  for  the  children,  — 
items  which  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with  self-respect 
and  contentment.  It  is  out  of  these  minute  exactions 
that  great  fortunes  are  built  up ;  a  street-railway  com- 
pany which  is  carrying  fifty  million  passengers  in  a 
year  adds  to  its  gains  half  a  million  dollars  by  adding 
one  cent  to  its  passenger  fares.  And  it  is  equally  true,  on 
the  other  side,  that  it  is  by  these  smaU  exactions  that 
the  comfort  and  welfare  of  the  laboring-class  is  greatly 
reduced.  AMien  these  exactions  are  multiplied,  —  when 


342  RECOLLECTIONS 

a  few  cents  a  day  are  added  to  the  cost  of  li\'ing  by  very 
slight  unnecessary  additions  to  the  price  of  carfare, 
or  gas,  or  electricity,  or  oil,  or  water,  and  by  slight 
enhancements  of  the  cost  of  food  or  fuel  which  come 
through  the  increase  of  freights,  —  the  burdens  of  the 
poor  are  aggravated  that  the  revenues  of  the  rich  may 
be  enlarged.  The  gravest  injustices  and  oppressions  of 
our  modem  hfe  are  of  this  nature,  and  out  of  them 
spring  our  worst  inequalities  of  condition.  So  long  as 
the  private  ownership  of  public-ser\dce  industries  is 
permitted,  the  regulation  of  these  businesses  must  rest 
with  the  legislative  bodies  of  the  state  or  the  city.  That 
is,  as  any  one  may  see,  a  tremendously  intricate  and 
difficult  problem.  It  calls  for  the  most  expert  knowledge 
of  business  and  of  finance,  but  it  demands  men  who  can 
look  beyond  the  immediate  financial  results  and  esti- 
mate the  effect  of  municipal  policies  upon  the  health, 
the  intelligence,  the  contentment,  and  the  self-respect  of 
the  people.  There  are  no  questions  of  administration 
requiring  a  higher  order  of  statesmanship  than  those 
which  are  now  before  the  councils  of  our  American 
cities.  To  deal  justly  with  all  parties  in  interest  requires 
a  grasp  of  affairs  which  few  of  us  can  claim  to  possess. 
So  long  as  public-service  industries  are  privately  OTvued, 
we  must  not  deprive  their  owners  of  a  just  reward  for 
their  services  and  sacrifices ;  but  neither  must  we  per- 
mit them,  by  shifty  financiering  and  corrupt  bargaining 
with  pohticians,  to  bind  heavy  burdens  on  the  necks  of 
the  producing  classes.  To  deal  wisely  and  justly  with 
these  great  interests,  we  must  have  the  services  of  the 
ablest  and  purest  men  in  the  community. 


THE  MUNICIPAL  PROBLEM  343 

,  In  dealing  with  the  franchise  of  the  natural  gas  com- 
pany, the  council  struck  a  problem  of  exceptional  diffi- 
culty. The  city  had  had  a  very  favorable  contract  with 
that  company ;  and  the  benefits  of  this  most  convenient 
and  serviceable  fuel  were  enjoyed  by  the  majority  of 
householders  in  the  city.  In  asking  for  a  renewal  of 
the  franchise,  the  company  strongly  represented  that, 
owing  to  the  lessening  supply,  and  the  increasing  cost  of 
production,  the  price  must  be  raised.  The  truth  of  the 
representation  it  was  almost  impossible  for  us  to  verify. 
The  cost  of  producing  artificial  gas  we  could  fairly 
estimate;  of  the  sources  of  supply  of  the  natural  gas 
we  could  not  judge,  ^^^len,  therefore,  the  company  laid 
before  us  a  proposition,  as  an  ultimatum,  and  told  us 
that  unless  we  would  permit  them  to  charge  a  certain 
rate,  they  would  sell  their  gas  in  another  market,  we 
were  confronted  with  a  serious  dilemma.  The  loss  of  this 
fuel  would  be  a  great  public  injury ;  should  we  make  sure 
of  keeping  the  gas  by  acceding  to  the  company's  de- 
mand, or  should  we  risk  the  loss  of  it  by  insisting  on  the 
lower  rate  ?  Many  shrewd  people  refused  to  beUeve  that 
the  company  would  execute  its  threat ;  others  took  the 
word  of  the  officers  and  urged  that  the  offered  terms  be 
accepted.  For  myself,  I  hesitated  to  take  the  responsi- 
bility, and  determined  to  throw  it  upon  my  constitu- 
ents. Accordingly  I  called  for  instructions  from  the 
consumers  of  my  ward,  promising  to  vote  as  the  ma- 
jority directed.  The  response  was  general,  and  the  ver- 
dict was  in  favor  of  accepting  the  company's  offer.  For 
that,  therefore,  I  was  constrained  to  vote.  But  I  did 
so  with  some  reluctance,  being  quite  inclined,  at  the 


344  RECOLLECTIONS 

last,  to  agree  with  the  majority  of  my  colleagues,  who 
did  not  believe  that  the  company  would  make  good  its 
threat,  and  who  insisted  on  the  lower  rate.  The  event 
proved  that  they  were  right;  the  gas  was  not  taken 
away,  and  the  people  enjoyed  the  cheaper  fuel. 

Out  of  this  transaction  I  learned  one  or  two  lessons. 
The  first  was  that  a  corporation,  in  dealing  with  a  city, 
need  not  be  expected  to  tell  the  truth.  The  men  who 
gave  me  positive  assurance  respecting  the  purposes  of 
the  company  were  men  on  whose  word  I  could  have 
rehed  explicitly  in  any  transaction  between  man  and 
man ;  as  representatives  of  a  corporation  dealing  with 
a  city,  a  different  rule  of  morality  seemed  to  obtain. 

The  second  lesson  I  learned  was  that  a  representative 
had  better,  as  a  rule,  rely  on  his  own  judgment  and  not 
seek  instructions  from  his  constituents.  The  elements 
of  the  problem  were  better  known  to  me,  at  the  mo- 
ment when  I  was  called  to  act,  than  they  were  to  my 
constituents;  I  should  have  decided  more  wisely  for 
them  than  they  decided  for  themselves.  That,  I  beheve, 
is  often  the  case  with  a  representative  of  fair  intelligence 
and  conscientiousness.  It  is  better  for  him  to  assume 
that  he  has  been  chosen  to  exercise  his  own  judgment ; 
in  that  way  he  is  more  likely  to  serve  the  interests  of 
those  who  have  chosen  him. 

The  question  respecting  the  maintenance  and  ex- 
tension of  our  municipal  electric  plant  was  one  of  con- 
siderable perplexity.  It  was  only  a  fragment  of  a  plant, 
supplying  the  city  with  less  than  a  third  of  its  street 
lights ;  the  rest  were  furnished  by  a  private  company  at 
contract  rates.  There  was  much  dispute  as  to  whether 


THE  MUNICIPAL  PROBLEM  345 

the  city  lights  were  cheaper  than  the  contract  lights ; 
but  a  careful  investigation  made  it  clear  to  me  that, 
although  the  city  plant  had  been  poorly  handled,  it 
was  effecting  a  real  economy.  When  the  private  com- 
pany came  to  put  in  its  bids  for  the  new  contract,  its 
prices  were  so  high  that  a  strong  pubhc  sentiment  de- 
manded the  extension  of  the  municipal  plant.  In  fur- 
therance of  this  demand,  I  succeeded  in  bringing  to 
Columbus  the  superintendent  of  the  municipal  lighting  of 
Chicago,  whose  testimony  respecting  the  success  of  the 
experiment  in  that  city  convinced  the  majority  of  my 
colleagues,  and  led  to  the  decision  that  the  city  should 
provide  its  own  street  lights.  We  have  now  a  well- 
equipped  municipal  plant,  and  the  cost  of  the  hghts, 
when  all  legitimate  expenses  are  reckoned,  is  lower  than 
any  contract  lighting  that  has  ever  been  offered  to  the 
city. 

I  am  not  at  all  sorry  that  I  had  a  chance  to  serve  the 
city  in  the  day  when  this  important  matter  was  decided, 
and  that  I  was  able  to  contribute  toward  the  formation 
of  the  public  opinion  which  resulted  in  the  adoption,  to 
this  extent,  of  the  principle  of  municipal  ownership.  For 
I  am  as  sure  as  I  can  be  of  anything  that  the  municipal 
ownership  and  control  of  public-service  industries  is  the 
right  pohcy,  —  the  only  policy  under  which  there  is  any 
hope  of  preventing  corruption  and  oppression.  As  I 
have  already  tried  to  show,  the  public-service  industries 
are  necessarily  monopolies ;  they  are  monopoUes  which 
furnish  us  with  the  necessaries  of  life ;  and  monopolies 
of  that  nature  must  belong  to  the  people.  It  would  be 
just  as  rational  to  give  a  private  corporation  the  right 


346  RECOLLECTIONS 

of  levying  taxes,  as  it  is  to  give  it  the  exclusive  control 
of  an  industry  by  which  the  welfare  of  all  the  people  is 
affected.  No  such  control  as  this  over  the  pubUc  welfare 
can  rationally  be  delegated  by  the  people  to  any  private 
agency.  If  this  does  not  belong  to  the  rudiments  of 
democracy,  it  would  be  hard  to  think  of  anything  that 
does. 

To  say  that  the  people  cannot  be  trusted  to  manage 
such  matters  is  simply  to  say  that  the  people  cannot 
govern  themselves.  Even,  therefore,  if  it  could  be  shown 
that  municipal  ownership  resulted,  for  a  time,  in  increas- 
ing the  cost  of  the  service,  that  would  be  no  reason  why 
it  should  not  be  chosen.  If  the  people  thus,  by  their 
carelessness  and  neglect,  bring  suffering  upon  them- 
selves, that  is  just  as  it  should  be ;  they  will  know  that 
they  have  brought  it  upon  themselves,  and  will  know 
how  to  avoid  it.  Nothing  is  safe  in  a  democracy  but 
the  method  which  brings  directly  home  to  the  people 
themselves  the  consequences  of  their  own  misdoing. 
That  is  the  only  way  in  which  they  can  be  educated. 

The  peril  of  private  o\\Tiership  of  pubUc-service  in- 
dustries arises  from  the  enormous  power  which,  as  a  vast 
experience  shows,  they  possess  to  corrupt  the  govern- 
ment of  the  cities.  If  in  any  city  there  are  ten  or  twenty 
or  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars  invested  by  private 
persons  or  corporations  in  public-ser\ice  industries, 
these  millions,  as  human  nature  goes,  are  directly  in- 
terested in  having  bad  government  in  that  city.  Good 
government,  government  by  thoroughly  intelligent  and 
efficient  men,  would  not  play  into  the  hands  of  the  own- 
ers of  these  millions,  and  could  not  be  controlled  by 


THE  MUNICIPAL  PROBLEM  347 

them  for  their  purposes.  Good  government  would  not 
give  them  the  kind  of  concessions  and  franchises  which 
they  seek.  Good  government  would  not  permit  them  to 
levy  tribute  on  the  public  for  the  payment  of  dividends 
on  vast  issues  of  fictitious  capital.  With  corrupt  or  in- 
efficient government,  all  these  things  are  possible.  Dis- 
honest men  can  be  bought  —  most  of  them  at  a  very  low 
price ;  weak  and  ignorant  men  can  be  easily  manipulated. 
This  is  the  kind  of  government  which  private  capital 
invested  in  public-service  industries  naturally  feels  that 
it  must  have.  It  is  simply  rehearsing  the  long  and  dark 
record  which  has  been  abundantly  spread  before  the 
reading  public,  to  say  that  private  capital  invested  in 
public-service  industries  has  Ijeen  and  is  to-day  the  one 
overshadowing  and  all-f^ervading  influence  by  which 
municipal  government  in  America  has  been  debauched. 
In  many  cases  its  plans  are  deeply  laid  to  secure  the 
election  of  men  who  can  be  used ;  in  other  cases  it  finds 
that  it  is  safe  enough  to  trust  the  people  to  provide 
officials  who  will  serve  its  purposes.  Unhappily  tliat 
confidence  is  not  often  misplaced.  It  must  be  true  that 
there  are  public-service  corporations  that  deal  fairly 
with  the  public,  and  that  do  not  seek  to  corrupt  the 
officials;  but  I  am  saving  what  every  intelligent  man 
knows  to  be  true  when  I  affirm  that,  as  a  rule,  the  capital 
invested  in  such  industries  is  well  aware  of  the  fact  that 
its  interest  lies  in  promoting  bad  government. 

It  is  not  reasonable  to  expect  that  such  a  power  will 
refrain  from  pushing  its  interest.  It  will  continue  to 
do  just  what  it  has  done  in  Philadelphia,  in  New^  York, 
in  St.  Louis,  in  San  Francisco,  in  Minneapolis,  —  and, 


348  RECOLLECTIONS 

in  a  smaller  and  more  cautious  way,  in  scores  of  other 
cities. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  people  of  any  city  can  afford 
to  have  ten  or  twenty  or  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars 
directly  and  consciously  interested  in  promoting  bad 
government.  It  is  a  foolhardy  thing  to  permit  such 
a  makeweight  to  be  thro\Mi  into  the  scale  on  the  side 
of  political  immorality.  It  is  a  crime  to  allow  such  a 
mighty  organized  force  to  be  used  for  the  destruction 
of  free  government.  Free  government  will  never  be 
secure  until  that  force  is  eliminated  from  the  body 
politic. 

I  am  aware  that  the  municipal  ownership  of  public- 
service  industries  would  not  entirely  abolish  corruption 
and  temptation.  There  would  still  be  opportunities  of 
graft,  and  room  for  all  sorts  of  corrupt  combinations; 
there  would  still  be  no  possibility  of  good  government 
unless  intelhgent  and  competent  men  were  willing  to 
take  office  and  the  people  were  vigilant  and  sensible 
enough  to  choose  them;  the  spoilsman  would  still  be 
in  the  field  plying  his  trade  with  diligence ;  but  what- 
ever dishonesties  and  infidelities  prevailed  would  be 
in  plain  sight  of  the  people;  and  no  such  stupendous 
aggregations  of  material  power  would  be  insidiously 
assailing  the  foundations  of  government. 

Nor  is  it  necessary  to  say  that  the  success  of  this  kind 
of  administration,  as  of  every  other,  must  depend  on  the 
elimination  from  our  city  business  of  every  vestige  of 
the  spoils  system,  and  in  the  adoption  of  the  same  prin- 
ciples of  efficiency  and  economy  which  prevail  in  all 
other  kinds  of  business.  So  long  as  our  city  offices  are 


THE  MUNICIPAL  PROBLEM  349 

vacated  and  refilled  at  every  election,  and  so  long  as 
they  are  regarded  as  stalls  in  which  faithful  party  work- 
ers are  fed  from  the  public  crib,  the  public  business  will 
be  done  in  a  slovenly  and  extravagant  way.  But,  as  has 
been  said  already,  if  the  people  were  managing  their  own 
business,  the  consequences  of  their  management  would 
be  brought  directly  home  to  them ;  and  the  millions  of 
private  capital  would  be  directly  interested  in  having 
good  and  economical  government.  That  makeweight 
would  be  thrown  into  the  scales  on  the  side  of  political 
moraUty.  Instead  of  having  a  large  part  of  the  wealth 
of  the  city  enlisted  in  the  promotion  of  weak  and  dis- 
honest administration,  we  should  have  the  most  of  it 
enlisted  in  securing  honesty  and  competency.  That  this 
would  have  a  powerful  influence  in  reforming  the  meth- 
ods of  municipal  administration,  I  cannot  doubt. 

It  has  been,  therefore,  a  satisfaction  to  me  that  I  had 
the  privilege  of  doing  something,  during  my  short  period 
of  public  service,  toward  bringing  municipal  monopoHes 
under  public  control.  That  the  evolution  of  democracy 
must  result  in  this  is  entirely  clear  to  me.  The  o\Mier- 
ship  and  control  of  all  monopohes  is  the  goal  ahead  of 
us,  toward  which  we  must  move  with  no  faltering. 

Our  two  great  problems  of  water  and  drainage  gave 
us  also  some  interesting  experience.  A  good  share  of  the 
members  of  our  city  government  felt  quite  competent 
to  solve  them,  off-hand,  and  a  picturesque  variety  of 
suggestions  was  soon  before  us.  We  were  so  fortunate, 
however,  as  to  have  an  intelligent  city  engineer,  who  had 
some  sense  of  the  magnitude  of  the  problems ;  and  by 
his  advice  the  best  authorities  on  these  two  subjects 


350  RECOLLECTIONS 

were  summoned,  to  give  us  their  counseL  It  was  not 
easy  for  some  of  our  number  to  consent  to  the  appropri- 
ation of  several  thousand  dollars  for  such  advice;  the 
idea  of  employing  experts  to  tell  us  what  we  should  do 
in  matters  of  this  nature  appeared  to  some  of  them  quite 
preposterous;  the  word  "expert"  was  flung  about  the 
council  chamber  with  much  contempt.  The  engineer's 
proposition  was,  however  adopted;  the  preliminary 
studies  and  surveys  were  made,  and  the  first  steps  were 
taken  toward  the  provision  for  our  city  of  an  abundant 
supply  of  filtered  and  softened  water  and  the  purification 
and  disposal  of  our  sewage.  It  was  a  great  and  costly 
undertaking,  and  years  have  been  occupied  in  accom- 
phshing  it,  but,  as  I  write  these  words,  in  the  summer  of 
1909,  we  are  rejoicing  in  an  abundance  of  filtered  and 
softened  water,  and  the  work  for  the  cleansing  of  our 
river  from  the  pestilence-breeding  germs  is  also  quite 
complete. 

The  observation  of  these  great  public  utilities  and  the 
study  of  the  needs  to  which  they  minister  deepens  one's 
sense  of  the  tremendous  interests  that  are  involved  in 
the  growth  of  our  cities,  and  of  the  extent  to  which  it  is 
necessary  for  us  to  work  together  for  the  common  good. 
To  supply  a  city  of  two  hundred  thousand  people  with 
pure  water  is  a  colossal  undertaking ;  but  working  to- 
gether, we  accomplish  it  with  comparative  ease,  and 
enjoy,  at  a  nominal  cost,  a  blessing  of  incalculable  value. 
It  is  a  signal  instance  of  the  beneficence  of  cooperation. 

One  part  of  our  experience  in  pushing  this  enterprise 
was  disenchanting.  As  soon  as  our  source  of  water-sup- 
ply was  determined,  all  owners  of  land  along  the  river- 


THE  MUNICIPAL  PROBLEM  351 

bank  rose  up  to  obstruct  the  city.  For  rights  of  way  for 
our  mains,  and  for  alleged  riparian  damages  of  one  sort 
or  another,  the  most  extravagant  demands  were  made. 
If  the  city  instituted  condemnation  proceedings  and  a 
jury  of  the  vicinage  was  summoned  to  assess  damages, 
we  found  the  natives  standing  together  to  extort  two  or 
three  times  the  value  of  their  property.  It  was  a  pitiful 
revelation  of  human  nature,  and  it  is,  I  am  told,  the 
common  experience  of  cities.  They  are  generally  com- 
pelled to  pay  enormous  tribute  to  land-owners  for  access 
to  sources  of  water-supply.  This  is  a  species  of  brigand- 
age for  which  some  remedy  ought  to  be  provided.  It  is 
akin  to  the  extortion  which  demands  of  a  famishing  man 
a  king's  ransom  for  a  cup  of  cold  water.  Our  Christian- 
ity has  not  much  vigor  if  it  cannot  make  men  ashamed 
of  such  unneighborly  conduct. 

I  took  my  leave  of  the  Columbus  city  council  in  April, 
1902,  with  a  sincere  regret.  I  had  no  consciousness  of 
having  achieved  great  things ;  but  I  had  come  into  close 
contact  with  the  vital  needs  of  my  city,  and  I  had  had 
some  part  in  solving  some  of  its  most  pressing  problems. 
I  laid  the  burden  down  because  it  was  not  possible  for 
me  to  bear  it  any  longer.  The  work  of  my  church  was 
heavy  and  exacting,  it  could  not  be  delegated,  I  must 
resign  either  my  charge  or  my  office.  The  results  of  my 
experience  were  a  deepened  sense  of  the  seriousness  of 
the  business  of  municipal  government  and  a  more  vivid 
realization  of  the  lack  of  knowledge  and  skill  on  the  part 
of  those  who  are  handling  it.  This  is  the  crying  evil  — 
incompetency.  There  were  not  many  occasions  on  w^hich 
I  suspected  the  presence  of  corrupting  influences  in  the 


352  RECOLLECTIONS 

council ;  I  do  not  think  that  money  was  often  used ;  but 
the  lack  of  the  adequate  knowledge  and  experience  for 
the  tasks  in  hand  was  often  painfully  apparent.  I  be- 
lieve that  this  is  true  of  city  governments  as  a  rule,  — 
perhaps  of  state  governments  also.  They  are  generally 
in  the  hands  of  men  who  have  no  fitness  to  deal  with 
them ;  and  this  is  mainly  because  the  men  who  have  the 
necessary  equipment  for  such  work  almost  uniformly 
refuse  to  undertake  it. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

BOUQUETS  AND  BRICKBATS 

While  the  manners,  while  the  arts 

That  mould  a  nation's  soul, 
Still  cling  around  our  hearts. 

Between  let  ocean  roll, 
Our  joint  communion  breaking  with  the  sun: 

Yet  still,  from  either  beach, 

The  voice  of  blood  shall  reach, 

More  audible  than  speech, 
"We  are  One." 

Washington  AUston. 

Not  Thine  the  bigot's  partial  plea, 

Not  Thine  the  zealot's  ban; 
Thou  well  canst  spare  a  love  of  Thee 

Which  ends  in  hate  of  man. 

John  Greenleaf  Whittier. 

These  Recollections  would  be  altogether  incomplete 
"without  some  mention  of  the  journeys  overseas,  in  which 
I  have  found  so  large  a  fund  of  stimulating  experience. 
It  was  in  the  spring  of  1888  that  I  first  saw  the  green 
shores  of  Ireland,  and  the  may  blooming  in  the  English 
hedgerows.  Memorable  are  those  first  days  in  the  sweet 
English  landscapes,  wandering  about  the  winding  streets 
of  old  Chester,  following  the  banks  of  the  Avon  from 
Warwick  to  Stratford,  resting  in  the  gardens  of  Oxford, 
or  upon  the  soft  slopes  and  the  w illow  banks  that  border 
the  Cam,  wondering  and  worshiping  in  the  minsters  of 
York  and  Lincoln  and  Canterbury  and  Ely  and  Win- 
chester. To  one  whose  mind  has  been  nursed  on  EngUsh 
letters,  no  other  land  can  offer  anything  akin  to  that 


354  RECOLLECTIONS 

which  is  constantly  spread  before  him  in  the  country  of 
Chaucer  and  Shakespeare  and  Wordsworth  and  Scott 
and  Burns  and  Ruskin  and  Tennyson  and  Browning. 
The  Alps  and  the  Rhine  and  quaint  Uttle  Holland  and 
sunny  France  had  charms  of  their  own,  but  when  we 
recrossed  the  Channel,  we  knew  that  we  were  coming 
home.  "Are  you  a  foreign  delegate?"  asked  one  of  the 
reception  committee  of  the  World's  Missionary  Con- 
ference in  Exeter  Hall,  London.  "No,"  I  answered, 
rather  indignantly,  "  I  am  an  American."  Five  weeks  in 
London  were  enough  to  go  round  about  her  and  tell  some 
of  the  towers  thereof  and  consider  a  few  of  her  palaces, 
and  lay  by  a  store  of  memories  that  would  need  refresh- 
ing at  no  distant  day. 

I  heard  Archdeacon  Farrar  preaching  in  Westminster 
Abbey  to  a  crowd  of  delegates  —  bishops  and  priests  — 
then  in  attendance  upon  the  Pan-Anglican  Council.  It 
was  brave  and  strong  truth  that  he  told  them,  too,  about 
the  inclusiveness  of  Christ's  church,  and  the  meaning  of 
Christian  fellowship.  I  had  my  only  glimpse  of  Glad- 
stone on  that  visit,  and  the  occasion  was  not  altogether 
an  engaging  one.  It  was  at  the  Sydenham  Palace,  at  the 
Haendel  Festival.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gladstone  were  there 
to  hear  the  "Israel  in  Egypt,"  and  they  occupied  the 
Queen's  box  in  the  transept,  opposite  the  choir.  Their 
presence  had  not  been  noted,  apparently ;  but  when,  in 
the  middle  of  the  performance,  an  intermission  of  half 
an  hour  was  taken,  the  audience,  rising  to  move  about, 
saw  the  great  Commoner  and  his  companion  sitting  there, 
and  immediately  there  was  an  indescribable  uproar. 
Hisses  and  hoots  came  first,  but  these  were  met  and  sub- 


BOUQUETS  AND  BRICKBATS  355 

merged  by  cheers.  The  voice  of  scorn  has  less  volume, 
happily,  than  the  voice  of  acclamation.  But  there  was 
plenty  of  hot  breath  behind  these  hisses,  and  of  spite  in 
the  eyes  that  glared  defiance  at  the  venerable  statesman. 
Answering  the  applause,  he  bowed  and  withdrew ;  but 
on  the  reassembling  of  the  audience,  when  he  came  back 
to  his  seat,  the  same  tumult  was  repeated.  A  woman, 
not  of  the  lower  class,  who  sat  near  me,  turned  her  face 
toward  the  Queen's  box  and  hissed  like  a  snake.  "  ^Vhat 
does  it  mean?"  I  asked  a  well-dressed  man  who  was 
joining  in  the  hubbub.  "He  is  ruining  his  country!" 
w^as  the  hot  reply.  There  was  not,  at  that  time,  any 
political  crisis,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  had  done  nothing  re- 
cently to  challenge  criticism ;  it  was  simply  an  outburst 
of  partisanship,  and  I  confess  that  I  had  never  seen,  in 
the  heated  political  atmosphere  of  my  native  land,  any- 
thing quite  so  unlovely.  It  seemed  an  unspeakable  out- 
rage that  a  man  like  Gladstone  could  not  attend  a  musi- 
cal festival  in  the  capital  of  his  own  country  without 
exposing  himself  to  insult. 

One  evening  in  London  got  itself  underscored  on  the 
tablets  of  memory.  By  invitation  of  my  venerable 
friend,  the  Reverend  Henry  Allon,  D.  D.,  of  Ishngton,  I 
went  with  him  to  a  meeting  of  what  I  think  was  called 
the  Christian  Union.  It  was  a  company  of  men  of  aU 
ecclesiastical  sorts  and  conditions,  —  Churchmen  and 
Dissenters, — who  met,  statedly  or  occasionally,  in  the 
Jerusalem  Chamber  of  Westminster  Abbey,  to  discuss 
the  possibiHties  of  fellowship  and  cooperation  among 
Christians.  I  think  that  the  movement  had  been  started 
by  Dean  Stanley.  We  arrived  at  the  Abbey  early  in  the 


356  RECOLLECTIONS 

evening,  and  passing  through  the  close  to  the  deanery, 
first  paid  our  respects  to  Dean  Bradley,  the  successor 
of  Dean  Stanley,  and  then  returned  to  the  refectory  in 
the  Abbey,  where  tea  was  served.  Then,  led  by  Dean 
Bradley,  the  company,  consisting  of  fifty  or  sixty  men, 
marched  through  the  nave,  in  the  solemn  twihght,  to  the 
choir,  where,  seated  in  the  stalls,  we  joined  with  the 
Dean  in  a  prayer  which  he  read  by  the  fight  of  a  single 
flaring  gas-jet ;  after  which  we  walked  softly  back  to  the 
west  end,  and  entered  the  historic  Jerusalem  Chamber. 
One  need  not  blush  to  admit  some  tingling  of  the  nerves 
as  he  seats  himself  within  the  venerable  walls  where  the 
Assembly  of  Divines  fashioned  a  good  part  of  the  West- 
minster Confession,  and  where  two  companies  of  Biblical 
scholars,  one  in  King  James's  time  and  one  in  Queen 
Victoria's,  spent  months  and  years  of  labor  upon  the 
translation  and  revision  of  our  Engfish  Bible.  Hither, 
too,  Shakespeare  brings  King  Henry  IV,  for  his  last 
breath.  He  had  meant  to  die  in  Jerusalem,  and  whim- 
sically deemed  it  the  next  best  thing  to  die  in  the 
Chamber  that  bore  that  name. 

It  hath  been  prophesied  to  me  many  years, 
I  should  not  die  but  in  Jerusalem ; 
Which  vainly  I  supposed  the  Holy  Land  : 
But  bear  me  to  that  chamber  ;  there  I  'lllie ; 
In  that  Jerusalem  shall  Harry  die. 

The  ancient  carvings  and  tapestries  bring  back  the 
memories  of  those  old  days.  And  here  is  a  silent  and 
attentive  company  ready  to  hear  reasons  why  men  of 
differing  creeds  should  dwell  together  in  unity,  with 
some  misgivings,  alas !  lest  they  may  not  be  able  to  do  so. 


BOUQUETS  AND  BRICKBATS  357 

"What  was  said  was  not  so  memorable ;  but  it  was  good 
that  men  were  moved  to  come  together  in  this  place  to 
say  it.  It  was  in  this  company  that  I  saw,  for  the  only 
time,  the  benignant  face  of  James  Martineau,  and  that 
I  first  grasped  the  kindly  hand  of  my  gracious  friend 
Dean  Fremantle,  of  Ripon,  —  then  Canon  of  Canterbury. 
Other  visits  to  England  and  the  Continent  bring  back 
each  its  sheaf  of  memories,  which  I  must  not  now  un- 
bind. In  1891,  as  delegate  to  the  International  Council 
of  CongregationaUsts,  I  revisited  the  old  country;  and 
again  in  1894  renewed  associations  and  friendships  there, 
which  had  been  multiplying.  In  the  summer  of  1898, 
during  the  Spanish  War,  my  English  pubUshers,  Messrs. 
James  Clarke  and  Company,  of  London,  announced, 
through  the  "Christian  World,"  that  I  would  speak 
within  the  Kingdom,  wherever  desired,  on  the  "Causes 
of  the  War,  and  the  Reasons  for  Friendship  between 
England  and  America."  This  was  not  a  lecturing  tour; 
it  was  distinctly  understood  that  I  would  pay  my  o%\ti 
traveling  expenses  and  receive  no  compensation  for  my 
addresses ;  hospitality  I  would  gladly  accept,  if  that  were 
proffered.  On  these  terms  I  found  no  difficulty  in  filling 
a  number  of  engagements,  in  various  parts  of  the  King- 
dom, and  a  more  delightful  summer  I  have  not  often 
spent.  The  meetings  were  generally  held  in  some  public 
hall,  —  sometimes  in  a  church ;  the  mayor  of  the  city, 
a  member  of  Parhament,  or  some  honorable  citizen 
would  take  the  chair,  and  the  welcome  of  the  town  would 
be  cordially  extended.  Almost  everyv\'here  the  "Star- 
Spangled  Banner"  was  sung,  —  rather  better  sung  than 
by  most  American  audiences.  What  I  had  to  say  about 


358  RECOLLECTIONS 

our  national  affairs,  and  especially  about  the  reasons  for 
friendship  between  the  two  countries,  was  received  with 
the  heartiest  favor.  I  never  have  spoken  to  audiences 
in  which  the  signs  of  enthusiasm  were  so  marked.  An 
English  assembly,  when  it  agrees  with  you,  is  an  in- 
spiring audience.  It  has  its  own  ways  of  going  along 
with  you,  and  —  to  use  the  Parhamentary  phrase  — 
"associating  itself"  with  you,  which  are  very  reassuring 
to  a  speaker. 

All  this  experience  was  memorable.  The  reasons  for 
friendship  between  England  and  America  multiplied 
with  every  meeting.  The  throngs  of  men  and  women 
who  jBled  past  me,  at  the  close  of  the  meeting,  grasping 
my  hand,  were  all  the  while  saying:  "I've  got  a  son, or 
a  daughter,  or  a  brother,  or  a  sister,  over  there !"  That 
there  could  be  any  other  than  the  most  friendly  relation 
between  the  two  countries  was  to  most  of  these  men 
and  women  inconceivable.  One  EngUshman  told  me 
of  the  shock  which  was  given  to  his  countrymen  when 
Cleveland's  message  upon  the  Venezuelan  business  sug- 
gested the  possibility  of  war.  He  said  that  men  met 
one  another  in  the  street,  holding  up  their  hands  in  hor- 
ror and  exclaiming:  "War!  War  with  America!  It  is 
monstrous!  It  is  preposterous ! "  That,  beyond  a  ques- 
tion, is  the  attitude  of  the  average  middle-class  English- 
man. There  could  hardly  be  a  more  unnatural  or  horrible 
offense  against  civilization  than  any  attempt  to  pro- 
mote hostilities  between  this  country  and  England. 

It  will  be  observed  that  these  Recollections  are  not 
attempting  to  follow  a  strict  chronological  order;  it 


BOUQUETS  AND  BRICKBATS  359 

seemed  better  to  bring  together  related  topics  without 
strict  adherence  to  the  order  of  time.  I  go  back,  then,  to 
the  Centennial  year,  for  a  glimpse  at  the  Columbian 
Exposition  in  Chicago,  and  especially  at  the  Parliament 
of  Religions,  which  was  not  only  the  most  picturesque, 
but  perhaps  the  most  significant,  religious  assembly 
ever  brought  together  upon  this  planet.  The  conception 
was  a  daring  one ;  nowhere  else  but  in  Chicago  could  it 
have  materialized.  Such  a  comparison  of  religions  could 
hardly  help  enlarging  the  range  of  many  minds,  and  it 
must  lead  the  advocates  of  all  reUgions  to  emphasize 
that  which  is  central  and  fundamental  in  their  forms 
of  faith.  All  this  tends  to  unity  and  fraternity.  That 
the  opportunity  for  such  a  comparison  was  offered  by 
Christianity  is  of  great  significance;  no  other  form  of 
faith  would  have  suggested  such  a  thing ;  this,  in  itself, 
indicates  the  likelihood  that  Christianity  vdU.  be  the 
solvent  and  unifier  of  faiths. 

It  was  a  strange  and  somewhat  disheartening  fact 
that  in  the  year  of  the  Parliament  of  ReUgions  our 
country  should  have  been  visited  by  an  astounding 
outbreak  of  religious  bigotry.  \\Tiether  the  fraterniza- 
tion of  the  religions  at  Chicago  had  anything  to  do  with 
this,  I  do  not  know ;  it  is  possible  that  some  small  souls 
were  disturbed  by  what  seemed  to  them  a  dangerous 
lowering  of  barriers  between  religionists,  and  may  have 
been  spurred  to  dig  deeper  the  chasms  which  sympathy 
and  good  will  were  filling  up.  The  outbreak  occurred  in 
the  domain  of  ultra-Protestantism,  and  was  directed 
against  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  Several  secret 
orders,  whose  object  was  hostility  to  Romanism,  either 


360  RECOLLECTIONS 

sprang  into  existence  or  awakened  to  new  activity, 
about  this  time.  The  movement  began  with  the  wide 
dissemination  of  literature  of  the  most  surprising 
character.  The  document  most  extensively  circulated 
was  entitled  "Instructions  to  the  Catholics."  It  pur- 
ported to  have  been  issued  by  the  order  of  the  Pope ; 
the  headlines  generally  made  that  assertion ;  the  names 
of  eight  archbishops  were  signed  to  it,  and  the  counter- 
sign of  Cardinal  Gibbons  was  appended.  This  document, 
in  the  form  of  a  tract  for  general  circulation,  was  brought 
to  me  by  dozens  of  men,  —  most  of  whom  supposed  that 
it  must  be  genuine.  The  "Instructions  to  the  Catholics" 
included  such  admonitions  as  these:  "We  view  with 
alarm  the  rapid  spread  of  educated  intelligence,  knowing 
well  that  wherever  the  people  are  intelligent  the  priest 
and  prince  cannot  hope  to  live  on  the  labor  of  the 
masses  whose  brains  have  been  fertilized  by  our  holy 
catechism.  .  .  .  We  view  with  alarm  the  rapid  diffusion 
of  the  English  language.  ...  In  order  to  find  employ- 
ment for  the  many  thousands  of  the  faithful  who  are 
coming  daily  to  swell  the  ranks  of  the  Catholic  army, 
which  will  in  due  time  possess  the  land,  we  must  secure 
control  of  all  the  cities,  railways,  manufactories,  mines, 
steam  and  saiUng  vessels  —  above  all,  the  press  —  in 
fact,  every  enterprise  requiring  labor,  in  order  to  furnish 
our  newcomers  employment ;  this  will  render  it  neces- 
sary to  remove  or  crowd  out  the  American  heretics 
who  are  now  employed.  You  need  not  hesitate ;  it  is 
your  duty  to  do  so.  You  must  not  stop  at  anything  to 
accomplish  this  end.  There  are  many  ways  to  consult 
your  father  confessor,  but  be  careful  to  do  nothing  that 
will  create  scandal." 


BOUQUETS  AND  BRICKBATS  361 

The  astounding  fact  is  that  this  document  was  freely 
circulated  for  many  months,  and  that  it  was  published 
in  scores  of  anti-Catholic  papers.  No  exposure  of  its 
fraudulent  nature,  so  far  as  I  know,  was  made  in  the 
religious  or  secular  newspapers.  Probably  most  of  the 
editors  may  have  supposed  that  its  absurdity  would  be 
evident,  but  in  fact  it  was  accepted  as  genuine  by  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  American  citizens  who  are  able  to 
read  and  write,  and  who  assume  to  be  educated  persons. 
It  was  possible  for  them  to  believe  that  the  high  pre- 
lates of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  are  stupid  enough 
to  issue  a  document  like  this  and  sign  their  names  to 
it.  And,  believing  that  such  were  the  purposes  of  the 
Roman  CathoHc  authorities,  it  was  easy  to  rope  these 
hundreds  of  thousands  into  a  secret  organization  whose 
purpose  was  a  bitter  warfare,  poUtical,  social,  and  in- 
dustrial, against  all  members  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church.  Such  an  organization  sprang  into  active  exist- 
ence and  spread  itself  over  the  country  in  1893.  Its 
members  were  bound  by  a  solemn  oath  never  to  favor 
or  aid  the  nomination,  election,  or  appointment  to 
office  of  a  Roman  Catholic,  and  never  to  employ  a 
Roman  Catholic,  in  any  capacity,  if  the  services  of  a 
Protestant  could  be  obtained.  Such  an  attempt  as  this, 
not  only  to  disfranchise  Roman  CathoHcs,  but  to  prevent 
them  from  obtaining  an  honest  Hvelihood,  —  to  starve 
them  to  death,  —  was  deemed  the  proper  and  Christian 
thing  by  tens  of  thousands  of  our  Protestant  church 
members  and  hundreds  of  our  Protestant  ministers  in 
the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Tliis  organi- 
zation s^-ept  the  state  of  Ohio,  and  several  of  the  west- 


362  RECOLLECTIONS 

ern  states;  most  of  the  local  governments  were  in  its 
power ;  our  own  state  legislature  was  under  its  control ; 
candidates  from  both  parties  rushed  into  it,  to  get  its 
support;  men  swore  this  hideous  oath  in  order  to  get 
themselves  elected  to  judgeships. 

As  the  madness  spread,  the  tales  respecting  the  ma- 
lign purposes  of  the  Roman  Catholics  became  more  and 
more  harrowing.  They  were  importing  arms  in  coffins, 
and  other  ghostly  packages;  they  were  drilling  every 
night  in  the  basements  of  their  churches,  —  this  was 
confidently  affirmed  respecting  many  churches  which 
had  no  basements.  One  Protestant  minister  in  Columbus 
announced  from  his  pulpit  that  he  had  bought  a  rifle 
to  defend  his  home,  —  evidently  wishing  to  suggest  to 
his  congregation  the  wisdom  of  adopting  the  same 
precaution.  Scores  of  newspapers,  with  large  circu- 
lation, fanned  the  flame  of  suspicion  and  spread  the 
panic.  A  forged  enc5^clical,  to  which  the  name  and  title 
of  Pope  Leo  XIII  was  prefixed,  released  all  CathoHcs 
from  any  oath  of  allegiance  which  they  might  have 
taken  to  the  United  States  government,  and  gave  specific 
orders  that  "on  or  about  the  feast  of  Ignatius  Loyola, 
in  the  year  of  the  Lord  1893,  it  will  be  the  duty  of  the 
faithful  to  exterminate  all  heretics  found  within  the  juris- 
diction of  the  United  States."  This  forged  encyclical 
was  kept  standing  for  weeks  in  the  papers  represent- 
ing the  order.  To  arm  themselves  against  this  threat- 
ened slaughter,  the  lodges  of  the  society  in  Toledo 
ordered  a  large  consignment  of  Winchester  rifles, 
which  were  distributed  among  their  members.  The  fact 
was  subsequently  brought  out  in  an  action  at  law,  in 


BOUQUETS  AND   BRICKBATS  363 

which  the  seller  of  the  rifles  sought  to  recover  the  cost 
of  them. 

Such  was  the  epidemic  of  unreason  and  bigotry  which 
was  raging  in  free  and  enlightened  America,  during 
1893  and  1894.  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  Roman 
Catholics  had  recently  done  anything  to  excite  this 
antipathy ;  all  their  tendencies  had  been  in  the  direction 
of  more  friendly  relations  with  their  Protestant  neigh- 
bors. And  while  this  fury  was  in  the  air,  their  behavior 
was,  for  the  most  part,  altogether  admirable.  They 
endured,  with  great  forbearance,  the  monstrous  false- 
hoods which  were  told  about  them;  they  waited  pa- 
tiently for  the  day  when  the  mists  of  suspicion  and  fear 
would  clear  away. 

AVhen  the  movement  first  began  to  gather  strength  in 
Ohio,  I  lost  no  time  in  bearing  my  testimony  against  it. 
In  an  evening  sermon  1  took  up  and  analyzed  its  litera- 
ture, proving  from  its  own  documents  its  fraudulent 
character,  and  seeking  to  show  how  radically  it  was  at 
war  not  only  with  truth,  but  with  justice  and  honor 
and  fair  play  and  every  dictate  of  Christian  morality. 
In  my  own  congregation  the  society  gained  no  foothold ; 
I  did  not  know  of  one  member  of  my  church  who  united 
with  it ;  but  the  case  was  very  different  with  most  of  the 
Protestant  congregations. 

My  sermon  brought  dovm  upon  me  the  denunciation 
of  the  anti-Catholic  crusaders ;  by  some  of  them  it  was 
charged  that  I  was  in  the  pay  of  that  church.  One  of 
my  ministerial  brethren  stated,  as  of  his  positive  know- 
ledge, that  my  sermon  was  the  result  of  a  definite  bar- 
gain between  myself  and  the  Roman  Catholic  bishop; 


364  RECOLLECTIONS 

he  gave,  minutely,  the  conversation  between  myself 
and  the  bishop  over  the  telephone  the  Saturda}''  evening 
before,  which  was,  substantially,  as  follows  :  — 

Myself.  "Is  this  Bishop  Watterson?" 

The  Bishop.  ''It  is." 

Myself.  "Well,  that  sermon  is  ready." 

The  Bishop.  "AU  right;  preach  it  to-morrow  night 
and  your  thousand  dollars  will  be  ready  for  you  on 
Monday  morning." 

No  comment  is  needed  on  the  fertility  of  the  imagi- 
nation which  could  evolve  such  a  fiction ;  the  only  thing 
notable  is  that  any  man  should  find  it  prudent  to  tell 
such  a  tale  in  an  intelligent  community.  This  is,  indeed, 
the  amazing  thing,  that  such  monstrous  fabrications  — 
stories  so  palpably  at  war  with  every  element  of  proba- 
biUty  —  can  be  circulated  by  human  beings  who,  in  ordi- 
nary matters,  must  be  credited  with  possessing  common 
sense.  Apparently  it  is  only  when  their  rehgious  preju- 
dices are  excited  that  men  completely  part  with  their 
rationality.  And  it  must  be  remembered  that  this  obses- 
sion cannot  be  charged  against  "ignorant  foreigners"; 
the  vast  majority  of  these  zealots  were  English-speak- 
ing people, 

I  might  naturally  have  hoped  that,  in  my  testimony 
against  this  fraudulent  and  mischievous  organization, 
the  pulpits  of  Columbus  would  be  with  me ;  but  such  was 
not  the  case.  Five  or  six  of  them  —  not  more,  I  think  — 
spoke  out  clearly  and  bravely ;  the  rest  were  either  silent 
or  openly  defending  the  pestilent  order.  Quite  a  number 
of  the  ministers  were  known  to  be  members  of  it ;  most 
of  those  who  were  not  were  either  in  sympathy  with  it 


BOUQUETS  AND  BRICKBATS  365 

or  afraid  of  it.  Several  of  them  told  me  that  while  they 
did  not  approve  of  it,  there  were  so  many  members  of  it 
in  their  congregations  that  it  would  not  do  for  them  to 
say  anything  about  it. 

It  is  asking  too  much  to  expect  us  to  believe  that  all 
those  who  circulated  these  astounding  reports  about 
their  neighbors  were  unaware  of  their  falsity.  The  most 
intelligent  of  them  must  have  knowm  that  these  tales 
were  lies.  Probably  they  governed  themselves  by  the 
philosophy  which  is  rudely  expressed  in  the  maxim, 
"Any  stick  is  good  enough  to  beat  a  dog."  The  stories 
were  slanders ;  but  the  Roman  CathoUcs  were  dangerous 
people,  and  therefore  any  reports  which  tended  to  dis- 
credit them,  whether  true  or  false,  might  be  useful.  It 
did  not  appear  to  these  pious  Protestants  that  in  this 
kind  of  casuistry  they  had  adopted  the  worst  maxim 
ever  credited  to  the  Jesuitic  teaching. 

It  was  surprising  to  see  how  quickly  this  proscriptive 
movement  collapsed,  for  within  two  years  it  disappeared 
from  sight,  and  those  who  had  availed  themselves  of  it 
to  climb  into  power  were  eager  to  hide  all  traces  of  their 
connection  with  it. 

I  have  lived  through  two  of  these  epidemics  of  reli- 
gious rancor,  about  forty  years  apart ;  I  sincerely  hope 
that  our  country  has  seen  the  last  of  them.  Our  Roman 
Catholic  fellow  citizens  have  earned  the  right  to  be  pro- 
tected from  such  proscription.  There  is  no  reason  to  sus- 
pect them  of  any  unpatriotic  purposes.  They  are  bearing 
their  part  in  the  promotion  of  thrift  and  order  and  intel- 
ligence. Any  attempt  to  discredit  or  disfranchise  them 
on  account  of  their  reUgious  beUefs  ought  to  be  resisted 
by  every  intelligent  American. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE  NEGRO   PROBLEM 

And  ye  shall  succor  men ; 

'T  is  nobleness  to  serve ; 

Help  them  who  cannot  help  again: 

Beware  from  right  to  swerve. 

I  cause  from  every  creature 
His  proper  good  to  flow : 
As  much  as  he  is  and  doeth, 
So  much  he  shall  bestow. 

But,  laying  hands  on  another 
To  coin  his  labor  and  sweat, 
He  goes  in  pawn  to  his  victim 
For  eternal  years  in  debt. 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 

The  reader  of  these  pages  will  not  need  to  be  told  that 
the  writer  of  them  has  not  been  unmindful,  through  his 
lifetime,  of  the  interests  of  the  negro  race  in  this  country. 
When  the  negroes  were  emancipated,  and  opportunities 
were  opened  for  their  education  and  preparation  for 
citizenship,  that  philanthropy  appealed  to  me  as  one  of 
the  most  enlightened  and  most  urgent  of  all.  It  hap- 
pened that  there  was  an  organization  for  missionary 
work,  affihated  with  the  Congregational  churches,  which 
seemed  to  be  specially  fitted  to  take  up  this  work  among 
the  negroes.  This  was  called  "The  American  Missionary 
Association" ;  it  had  been  formed  by  men  who  were  in 
revolt  against  certain  pro-slavery  complications  of  the 
Congregational  Mission  Board ;  its  attitude  toward  the 


THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM  367 

negroes  had  always  been  sympathetic;  and  when  the 
contrabands  were  gathered  by  thousands  at  Fortress 
Monroe  and  in  the  camps  of  the  northern  armies,  this 
society  immediately  entered  the  field  and  began  among 
them  the  work  of  education.  With  the  coming  of  peace 
and  the  swarming  of  the  negroes  in  the  southern  cities 
the  opportunity  was  indefinitely  extended ;  and  it  was 
not  long  before  many  schools  had  been  estabhshed  in 
different  parts  of  the  South.  Thus  it  was  that  the  reli- 
gious body  to  which  I  have  always  belonged  was  a  pio- 
neer in  the  work  for  the  Freedmen.  Other  Christian  de- 
nominations have  been  engaged  in  the  same  enterprise 
and  have  done  excellent  work,  but  the  Congregational- 
ists,  whose  interest  in  education  has  always  been  deep 
and  active,  were  the  first  in  this  field,  and  have  always 
been  among  the  foremost.  To  their  enterprise  is  due  a 
very  large  provision  for  negro  education  in  the  southern 
states.  The  great  institution  at  Hampton  was  founded 
by  them ;  it  has,  however,  for  many  years,  been  on  an 
independent  foundation.  The  same  is  true  of  Berea 
College  in  Kentucky.  Fisk  University  at  Nashville, 
Atlanta  University,  Tougaloo  University  in  Mississippi, 
Talladega  College  in  Alabama,  Straight  University  at 
New  Orleans,  Tillotson  College  in  Texas,  are  institutions 
which  have  been  planted  and  are  maintained  by  the 
American  Missionary  Association ;  and  added  to  these  is 
a  considerable  group  of  normal  schools,  and  other  sec- 
ondary schools  in  different  parts  of  the  South.  In  con- 
nection with  these  schools,  in  places  where  graduates  of 
these  schools  are  gathered,  and  in  many  other  places, 
Congregational  churches  have  also  been  formed. 


368  RECOLLECTIONS 

Li  this  work  of  the  American  Missionary  Association 
I  have  had  a  deep  interest  from  my  earUest  ministry ; 
most  of  its  officers  have  been  my  friends.  For  several 
years  I  was  one  of  its  vice-presidents,  and  in  1901 1  was 
honored  by  being  chosen  its  president. 

It  is  not  improbable  that  some  of  those  who  read 
these  pages  may  find  themselves  questioning  whether 
such  an  institution  as  this  has  now  any  proper  work  to 
do.  The  southern  states,  it  may  be  said,  are  making  pro- 
vision for  the  education  of  the  negroes,  and  it  is  better 
to  leave  the  business  in  their  hands.  It  may  be  that 
they  have  done  aU  that  could  be  reasonably  expected  of 
them,  but  the  provision  is  yet,  in  most  of  these  states, 
wholly  inadequate.  The  Southern  Education  Board, 
which  has  been  formed  to  aid  the  southern  states  in  ex- 
tending and  improving  their  educational  facilities,  is  a 
witness  to  the  fact  that  such  aid  is  needed,  even  by  the 
whites.  Among  the  blacks  the  need  is  far  greater. 

The  truth  is  that  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves 
threw  upon  the  people  of  the  South  a  tremendous  bur- 
den, which,  in  their  impoverished  condition,  they  were 
utterly  unable  to  bear ;  and  it  was  and  stiU  is  the  duty 
of  the  people  of  the  North  to  share  it  with  them.  For 
the  burden  is  not  yet  lifted,  nor  has  it  ceased  to  press, 
with  crushing  weight,  upon  the  southern  people. 

See  what  the  problem  is,  as  it  presents  itself  to  the 
mind  of  one  southern  educator,  Professor  Woodward,  of 
Trinity  College,  North  Carohna :  ''To  state  the  terms  of 
this  problem  is  to  indicate  its  imexampled  difficulties; 
here  are  nine  milfions  of  aliens,  doubfing  about  every 
forty  years,  fixed  as  to  habitation,  socially  ostracized, 


THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM  369 

politically  disfranchised,  morally  undeveloped,  —  in 
a  word,  a  race,  a  thousand  years  behind,  who  must 
somehow  be  built  into  this  national  fabric  and  organic- 
ally incorporated  with  the  national  life  and  character. 
Evidently  such  a  consummation  will  severely  tax  the 
intelligence  and  the  patience  of  the  whole  people  for 
generations  to  come." 

No  better  statement  of  the  task  could  be  asked  for. 
But  to  whom  does  it  belong?  Let  the  same  voice  teach 
us :  "The  negro  problem  is  a  national  problem,  however 
southemly  located,  to  be  solved  by  the  whole  people  of 
the  South,  the  whole  people  of  the  North,  and  the  ne- 
groes, getting  together  and  working  together  on  common 
grounds ;  for  on  such  agreement  and  co-work  the  solution 
of  it  depends." 

This  southern  gentleman  is  inchned  to  decUne  help 
from  the  North  in  the  education  of  white  children ;  "  but 
the  North  owes  the  black,"  he  insists,  "as  much  as  the 
South  owes  him,  and  that  is  the  great  debt.  .  .  .  Help- 
ing people  whose  best  education  is  self-help  and  who 
have  the  means  of  self-help  within  reach,  degrades  both 
giver  and  receiver.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  North, 
in  its  southern  movements  for  negro  education,  will 
correct  this  initial  mistake,  this  confusion  of  duty  and 
charity,  and  fix  organization  on  the  safe  basis  of  north- 
ern obUgation  for  the  education  and  civiUzation  of  the 
negro." 

We  may  feel  that  the  southern  gentleman  is  too  sensi- 
tive on  this  score.  One  reason  why  northern  help  is  ex- 
tended to  southern  whites  is  that  the  southern  whites 
are  overburdened  by  their  task  of  providing  elementary 


370  RECOLLECTIONS 

education  for  the  vast  numbers  of  illiterate  blacks.  It  is 
not  an  impulse  of  charity,  but  a  sense  of  justice,  which 
prompts  northern  men  to  share  with  them  the  burden. 
So  also  testifies  another  brave  southern  man,  the  Rev- 
erend Edgar  Gardner  Murphy,  of  Alabama:  "The  Na- 
tion, including  the  South  as  weU  as  the  North,  the  West 
as  well  as  the  South  and  North,  has  to  do  with  every 
issue  in  the  South  that  touches  any  national  right  of 
the  humblest  of  its  citizens."  That  is  surely  the  states- 
manUke  distribution  of  responsibihty  for  this  business. 
But  what  is  the  nature  of  the  task?  The  negro  is  on 
the  hands  of  the  nation.  "\Miat  shall  we  do  for  him? 
What  shall  we  make  of  him?  Here  the  voices  divide. 
The  prevailing  sentiment  at  the  South  to-day  undoubt- 
edly insists  that  he  must  be  kept  in  a  subject,  if  not  in 
a  servile  position.  Governor  Vardaman  declares  that  he 
must  be  educated,  but  that  his  education  must  be  in- 
dustrial and  moral,  not  intellectual.  We  must  educate 
his  hands  and  his  heart,  says  this  philosopher,  but  not 
his  head.  There  is  a  problem  in  pedagogy  for  you !  Gov- 
ernor Vardaman  reminds  us  of  the  English  mechanic 
who  brought  his  boy  to  the  night  school,  saying,  "I 
want  this  boy  to  learn  to  write ;  I  want  him  to  write  my 
letters  and  keep  my  accounts."  "Very  good,"  said  the 
master ; "  we  will  teach  him  to  write  and  to  read."  "  No, 
no !  "  said  the  father.  "I  don't  want  him  to  know  how 
to  read.  Teach  him  to  read,  and  he  'U  be  wastin'  his  time 
with  books  and  papers  and  all  such.  Teach  him  to  write ; 
that'll  be  of  some  use."  The  notion  that  education  can 
be  put  up  in  air-tight,  non-communicating  compart- 
ments, and  that  the  negro's  heart  and  hands  can  be  ade- 


THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM  371 

quately  trained  without  developing  his  brain,  deserves 
a  place  in  the  museum  of  psychological  curiosities. 

If  the  main  thing  to  be  done  for  the  negro  is  to  keep 
him  in  ignorance  and  subjection,  that  is  a  task  which 
requires  no  great  amount  of  art,  —  nothing  but  hard 
hearts  and  brutal  wills.  There  is  physical  force  enough 
in  the  nation  to  hold  him  do\A'n  for  a  while ;  how  long 
that  dominion  would  last,  I  will  not  try  to  tell.  The  civ- 
ilization built  on  that  basis  will  fall,  and  great  will  be 
the  fall  of  it.  We  have  had  our  admonition  already,  —  a 
war  that  cost  six  hundred  thousand  Uves  and  twelve 
billions  of  dollars,  —  and  the  bills  are  not  paid  yet.  That 
is  a  slice  of  the  retribution  due  for  trying  to  build  a  civil- 
ization on  prostrate  manhood.  If  we  are  not  satisfied 
with  that,  if  we  insist  on  trjing  the  same  experiment 
over  again  in  a  slightly  different  form,  another  day  of 
judgment  will  come,  and  will  not  tarry.  We  shall  get  it 
hammered  into  our  heads  one  of  these  days  that  this  is  a 
moral  universe ;  not  that  it  is  going  to  be,  by  and  by,  but 
that  it  is  moral  now,  moral  all  through,  in  tissue  and 
fibre,  in  gristle  and  bone,  in  muscle  and  brain,  in  sensa- 
tion and  thought ;  and  that  no  injustice  fails  to  get  its 
due  recompense,  now  and  here.  The  moral  law  admon- 
ishes us  not  to  make  our  fellow  man  our  tool,  our  tribu- 
tary. "Thou  shalt  treat  humanity"  —  it  is  Kant's  great 
saying  —  "ever  as  an  end,  never  as  a  means  to  thine  own 
selfish  end."  Disobey  that  law,  and  the  consequence 
falls.  Evade  it  no  man  ever  does  for  so  long  as  the  wink 
of  an  eyelid.  Its  penalty  smites  him  with  lightning 
stroke ;  he  is  instantly  degraded,  beclouded,  weakened 
by  his  disobedience.   Virtue  has  gone  out  of  him;  the 


372  RECOLLECTIONS 

slow  decay  is  at  work  by  which  his  manhood  is  de- 
spoiled. 

The  same  law  holds  in  all  realms.  It  is  as  sure  and 
stem  iQ  its  dealing  with  races  as  with  persons.  The 
stronger  race  that  tries  to  treat  the  weaker  not  as  an 
end,  but  as  a  means  to  its  own  selfish  ends,  plucks  swift 
judgment  from  the  skies  upon  its  own  head.  On  such  a 
race  there  will  surely  fall  the  mildew  of  moral  decay, 
the  pestilence  of  social  corruption,  the  bUght  of  its 
civiUzation. 

This  is  not  northern  fanaticism.  It  is  a  truth  which 
has  been  uttered  more  than  once,  with  the  emphasis  of 
con\'iction,  by  strong  men  in  the  South.  It  is  not  the 
\'iew  which  prevails  there  to-day,  but  it  is  a  \'iew  which  is 
held  there  by  a  strong  minority  of  the  ablest  men,  and 
it  must  prevail.  The  luminous  studies  of  the  negro  ques- 
tion which  have  been  given  us  by  Mr.  Ray  Stannard 
Baker  in  the  "American  Magazine"  bring  before  us  the 
elements  which  will  finally  rule  in  the  working  out  of 
this  problem.  There  are  men  at  the  South  to-day  who 
know  and  say  that  the  task  which  the  negro  presents  to 
the  South  and  the  nation  is  not  the  task  of  keeping  him 
in  subjection,  but  the  task  of  hfting  him  to  manhood  and 
gi\'ing  him  the  rights  and  responsibihties  that  belong 
to  a  man.  "The  best  southern  people,"  says  President 
Alderman,  of  the  University  of  Virginia,  "are  too  wise 
not  to  know  that  posterity  vdU  judge  them  according  to 
the  "wisdom  they  use  in  this  great  concern.  They  are  too 
just  not  to  know  that  there  is  but  one  thing  to  do  with  a 
human  being,  and  that  is  to  give  him  a  chance."  In  the 
same  vein  President  Kilgo,  of  Trinity  College,  North 


THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM  373 

Carolina,  insists  that  the  negro  must  have  the  right  and 
the  opportunity  to  make  of  himself  all  that  God  meant 
him  to  be.  "He  Ufts  his  dusky  face  to  the  face  of  his 
superior,  and  asks  why  he  may  not  be  given  the  right  to 
grow  as  well  as  dogs  and  horses  and  cows.  For  a  superior 
race  to  hold  down  an  inferior  one  that  the  superior  race 
may  have  the  services  of  the  inferior  was  the  social  doc- 
trine of  medisevalism.  Americans  cannot  explain  why 
they  shudder  at  the  horrors  of  the  tenth  and  eleventh 
centuries,  and  are  themselves  content  to  keep  the  weak 
in  their  weakness  in  order  that  the  strong  may  rule 
better." 

To  this  southern  testimony  some  northern  men  would 
do  well  to  give  good  heed.  Its  implications  are  large.  It 
means  that  while  the  primary  need  of  the  negro  is  indus- 
trial education,  the  scheme  which  stops  with  that  will  not 
do  at  all.  It  is  this  southern  college  president  who  says 
again :  "The  education  given  at  Tuskegee  and  Hampton 
is  founded  in  wisdom.  However,  industrial  education 
does  not  and  cannot  develop  the  highest  and  broadest 
moral  character.  If  the  negro  is  only  capable  of  learning 
the  lesser  morals,  and  filling  the  lesser  spheres  of  moral 
duty,  then  industrial  education  will  prove  sufficient  for 
all  his  development.  ...  If  he  is  to  be  judged  by  the 
higher  standards  of  moral  life,  then  he  must  be  given 
those  things  which  will  fit  him  to  meet  the  duties  and 
tasks  of  the  higher  moral  life.  To  shut  a  race  within 
narrow  limits  forces  it  to  develop  a  contentment  with  a 
low  order  of  things." 

There  is  a  further  truth  which  these  far-seeing  south- 
ern men  do  not  fail  to  seize  and  emphasize.  If,  as  seems 


374  RECOLLECTIONS 

to  be  determined,  there  is  to  be  social  separation  be- 
tween the  races,  that  is  itself  a  decisive  reason  why  the 
black  man  must  have  access  to  the  highest  culture. 
''Forthe  very  reason,"  says  Mr.  Murphy,  ''that  the  race, 
in  the  apartness  of  its  social  life,  is  to  work  out  its 
destiny  as  the  separate  member  of  a  large  group,  it 
must  be  accorded  its  own  leaders  and  thinkers,  its  own 
scholars,  artists,  prophets ;  and  while  the  development 
of  the  higher  life  may  come  slowly,  even  blunderingly, 
it  is  distinctly  to  be  welcomed." 

These  southern  witnesses  make  it  clear  that  the  kind 
of  work  which  those  with  whom  I  have  been  associated 
have  been  trying  to  do  for  the  negro  is  not  unnecessary 
or  superfluous  work.  Much  ill-considered  criticism  has 
been  expended  upon  the  "universities"  and  "colleges" 
maintained  in  the  South  for  the  benefit  of  the  negroes ; 
but  these  are  for  the  training  of  leaders  and  teachers ; 
and  if  the  races  are  to  be  socially  separate,  the  nine  mil- 
lions of  blacks  must  have  their  own  teachers  and  leaders, 
and  they  must  be  well  trained  and  competent.  If  all 
social  contact  between  the  races  is  to  be  prevented, 
then  it  will  not  be  seemly  for  a  white  physician  to 
practice  medicine  in  a  black  man's  home,  nor  for  a  white 
lawyer  to  do  business  for  a  black  cHent ;  the  race  must 
have  its  own  doctors  and  lawyers,  and  they  must  be 
men  of  skill  and  learning.  Is  there  any  good  reason  why 
a  black  physician  should  not  be  as  well  educated  as 
a  white  one?  No  less  imperative  is  the  demand  for 
thoroughly  educated  schoolmasters  and  preachers. 

What  is  more,  it  is  abundantly  proved  that  it  is  only 
where  the  higher  education  flourishes  that  primary  edu- 


THE  NEGRO  PROBLEM  375 

cation  can  be  efficiently  maintained.  Teachers  who 
know  no  more  than  is  taught  in  the  primary  schools 
cannot  teach  primary  schools.  And  those  who  are 
teaching  in  the  industrial  schools  must  know  more  than 
is  taught  in  those  schools.  Mr.  "Washington's  school  at 
Tuskegee  is  one  of  the  noblest  institutions  on  this  con- 
tinent ;  but  the  men  and  women  who  are  working  by  his 
side  were  largely  trained  for  their  work  in  the  colleges 
which  our  American  Missionary  Association  has  been 
maintaining,  and  in  others  like  them.  It  is  not  needful 
to  plead  the  cause  of  industrial  education ;  that  is  abun- 
dantly vindicating  itself,  and  such  work  as  Hampton 
and  Tuskegee  are  doing  deserves  the  enthusiastic  sup- 
port of  all  men  of  good  will.  Industrial  education  is  part 
of  the  curriculum  in  all  the  institutions  whose  names  I 
have  given,  and  of  which  our  Association  has  the  care. 
I  have  only  desired  to  call  attention  to  another  aspect 
of  the  question  which  the  superficial  observer  is  apt 
to  overlook. 

There  is  no  reason  why  there  should  be  any  quarrel 
between  these  two  classes  of  educators ;  each  needs  the 
other's  aid.  Much  less  reason  is  there  why  the  northern 
men  who  have  been  working  since  the  war  for  the  up- 
lifting of  the  negroes  should  fail  to  honor  the  glorious 
company  of  southern  men  whose  eyes  are  open  to  the 
ethical  principles  involved  in  our  most  serious  social 
question,  and  who  are  setting  their  faces  steadily  toward 
the  only  goal  which  American  ci\ilization  can  keep  in 
view.  "The  thinking  men  and  women  of  this  section," 
says  Professor  Woodward,  "are  ready  to  grant  to  the 
negro  opportunity  to  win,  as  he  may  be  able,  full  citizen- 


376  RECOLLECTIONS 

ship  and  all  it  implies,  educationally  and  politically. 
But  this  opinion  is  not  generally  influential  as  yet,  what- 
ever strength  it  may  win  in  the  future."  No ;  it  is  not 
generally  influential  yet ;  but  it  is  the  opinion  that  must 
prevail,  because  this  is  a  moral  universe.  The  words 
which  I  have  quoted  from  these  southern  men  are  true 
words ;  the  breath  of  God  is  in  them ;  they  ring  with  the 
accent  of  conviction.  They  are  not  going  to  be  taken 
back.  They  cannot  be  gainsaid.  They  will  force  the 
assent  of  honest  men,  here  and  there,  who  will  take  them 
up  and  repeat  them.  They  will  form,  little  by  Uttle, 
a  body  of  opinion  at  the  South  which  will  assert  and 
maintain  the  right  of  the  negro  to  be  a  man,  with  all 
that  that  implies. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

A  POLITICAL  RETROSPECT 

For  art  and  labor  met  in  truce, 
For  beauty  made  the  bride  of  use, 
We  thank  Thee;  but,  withal,  we  crave 
The  austere  virtues  strong  to  save. 
The  honor  proof  to  place  or  gold, 
The  manhood  never  bought  nor  sold  1 

Oh,  make  Thou  us,  through  centuries  long, 
In  peace  secure,  in  justice  strong; 
Around  our  gift  of  freedom  draw 
The  safeguards  of  thy  righteous  law: 
And,  cast  in  some  diviner  mould, 
Let  the  new  cycle  shame  the  old  I 

John  Greenleaf  Whittier. 

Let  me  turn  back  and  gather  up  a  few  memories  of 
the  fortunes  of  the  nation  during  the  days  since  I  found 
my  home  in  Columbus.  The  disappearance  of  poHtics 
from  this  narrative  at  about  the  time  of  the  removal 
of  the  narrator  to  Ohio  would  be  a  phenomenon  needing 
explanation.  It  might,  indeed,  be  attributed  by  scoffers 
to  the  fact  that  an  over-supply  of  poHtical  pabulum 
furnished  by  Ohio  had  caused  a  surfeiting  of  the  appe- 
tite for  politics.  The  absence  from  the  Mosaic  literature 
of  all  reference  to  the  future  life  has  been  by  some  critics 
explained  as  the  reaction  of  Moses  against  the  excessive 
other-worldliness  of  Egypt ;  and  some  similar  inference 
might  be  drawn  from  the  omission  of  politics  from  these 
Recollections  since  1883.  I  must,  therefore,  make  haste 


378  RECOLLECTIONS 

to  disavow  such  an  imputation  against  my  Ohio  neigh- 
bors. We  are,  indeed,  in  this  commonwealth,  some- 
what actively  concerned  about  politics ;  next  to  baseball 
it  is,  perhaps,  the  most  engrossing  interest  of  our  lives, 
and  the  nation  will  admit  that  the  Ohio  politicians  have 
made  good.  The  strenuosity  of  pohtical  allegiance  in 
this  neighborhood  seemed  at  first,  I  confess,  somewhat 
excessive.  I  had  worn,  rather  loosely,  the  party  uni- 
form, in  Massachusetts;  but  Republicanism  had  never 
been  a  religion  with  me,  and  I  had  never  felt  that  a 
refusal  to  vote  for  an  unfit  Republican  could  be  counted 
as  apostasy.  WTicn  I  found  that  Oliio  Republicanism 
was  inclined  to  i)ut  that  constmction  uix)n  independent 
action,  I  saw  that  I  must  not  pretend  to  be  a  Republican. 

In  the  campaign  of  1884,  when  my  parishioners  dis- 
covered that  I  did  not  intend  to  vote  for  Mr.  Blaine, 
some  of  them  were  concerned  about  my  soul ;  but  most 
of  them  learned,  before  long,  to  let  me  pass  as  a  proba- 
ble recipient  of  uncovenanted  mercies.  I  ought  then  to 
have  voted  for  Mr.  Cleveland,  and  it  has  always  been  a 
matter  of  sincere  regret  to  me  that  I  did  not;  the  mis- 
giving with  respect  to  his  moral  soundness  which  then 
withheld  me  was  not  justified.  The  behavior  of  the  man 
in  that  ordeal  should  have  reassured  me.  His  entire 
subsequent  career  won  for  me  the  heartiest  conviction 
of  the  essential  integrity  and  greatness  of  his  character. 
Few  men  in  public  life  have  inspired  a  more  profound 
confidence  in  their  ruling  purposes. 

The  non-partisan  attitude  which  from  this  time  for- 
ward I  was  constrained  to  maintain  has  sometimes 
caused  me  inconvenience ;  there  have  been  times  when 


A  POLITICAL  RETROSPECT  379 

I  should  have  been  glad  to  belong  to  a  party,  but,  on 
the  whole,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that,  for  me,  it  has 
been  the  right  attitude.  There  are  decided  advantages 
in  not  being  a  member  of  any  political  party. 

Once  I  was  asked  to  serve  as  one  of  the  four  election 
judges  of  my  voting  precinct,  and,  as  a  citizen  who 
wishes  to  do  his  share  of  the  hard  work,  I  promptly 
accepted.  Wlien,  however,  I  came  to  quaUfy,  I  found 
difficulty.  The  law  required  that  not  more  than  two  of 
the  judges  should  be  mcmlx^rsof  any  one  jxjlitical  party. 
Two  Democratic  judges  and  one  Republican  judge  had 
Ix'en  sworn  in,  and  the  document  presented  to  me  to 
sign  made  roe  state  that  I  was  a  citizen  of  the  state  and 
of  the  precinct,  and  that  I  was  a  Republican.  "Hut  I 
cannot  sign  that,"  I  said.  "Are  you  not  a  Republican?" 
asked  the  official.  "No."  "Are  you  a  Democrat?" 
"No."  "Will  you  swear  that  you  are  not?"  "Cer- 
tainly." "Very  well,"  So  the  wortis  "he  is  a  Republi- 
can" were  erased  from  the  certificate  of  apix)intment, 
and  the  words  "he  is  not  a  Democrat  "  were  written  in. 
This  seemed  to  fulfill  all  righteousness,  and  I  was  per- 
mitted to  si^-rve  the  state  in  tlie  capacity  of  an  election 
judge  by  solenuily  swearing  that  I  was  not  a  Democrat. 

Let  me  here  recall  a  later  exi)erience  in  practical  poli- 
tics which  may  have  interest  for  amateur  poUticians. 
In  the  late  winter  of  1903  we  were  confronting  the 
municijml  election,  and,  in  view  of  conditions  then  exist- 
ing in  the  city,  the  decent  people  were  "under  connc- 
tion,"  and  were  saying  among  themselves  as  they  are 
wont  to  say  |>eriodically,  "  Men  and  brethren,  what  shall 
we  do?"  There  was  a  proposition  that  the  men's  clubs 


380  RECOLLECTIONS 

in  the  churches  form  a  federation  to  take  part  in  the 
campaign.  Such  a  suggestion  was  made  in  our  own 
men's  club,  but  it  was  not  cordially  received ;  the  im- 
pression was  that  any  combination  of  the  churches 
as  such  would  be  inadvisable.  After  the  meeting  of 
the  club  had  adjourned,  three  or  four  of  us  tarried  and 
formed  a  plan  of  operations.  Each  was  to  invite  three 
or  four  men,  whose  names  were  agreed  upon,  to  meet  on 
a  subsequent  evening  at  a  room  in  one  of  the  busi- 
ness houses.  About  fifteen  men  came  together,  and  a 
pledge  was  framed  by  which  the  signers  agreed  to  vote 
in  the  coming  election  for  candidates  selected  from  the 
nominees  of  the  two  leading  parties  by  a  committee 
of  twenty  of  their  own  number,  —  this  committee  to  be 
equally  divided  between  the  two  political  parties.  The 
pledge  was  not  to  be  published,  and  the  canvass  was 
to  be  quietly  made ;  no  one  was  to  be  invited  to  sign 
whose  name  had  not  been  approved  at  our  meetings. 
We  wished  the  signatures  of  no  active  politicians,  and 
sought  only  the  cooperation  of  those  who  would  stand 
together  in  the  fulfillment  of  our  non-partisan  pledge. 
The  attendance  upon  our  weekly  meetings  increased, 
but  our  lists  grew  much  more  rapidly ;  before  the  news- 
papers got  wind  of  our  scheme,  we  had  nearly  two  thou- 
sand men  pledged  to  vote  for  the  ticket  which  we  should 
recommend.  This  was  before  the  nominating  conven- 
tions, and  while  the  party  machinists  were  discussing 
candidates.  As  soon  as  the  nature  of  our  operations 
became  known,  we  were  beset  by  intending  candidates, 
who  wished  to  secure  our  indorsement  before  their 
nomination ;  but  we  positively  refused  to  commit  our- 


A  POLITICAL  RETROSPECT  381 

selves  to  any  of  them,  insisting  that  our  selection  must 
be  made  from  the  actual  nominees.  The  fact  that 
twenty-five  hundred  men  were  pledged  to  ignore  party 
ties  and  to  vote  solidly  in  this  election  for  candidates 
selected  by  themselves  from  the  two  tickets  was  a  fact 
of  some  significance  to  the  managers  of  the  two  ma- 
chines, and  gave  us,  no  doubt,  a  better  list  of  candidates 
to  select  from  than  we  should  have  had  othen\ise. 

It  appeared  to  most  of  us  beforehand  that  the  pinch 
of  the  problem  would  come  in  the  selection  of  our  com- 
mittee of  twenty,  and  in  the  ability  of  that  conmiittee, 
if  it  could  be  chosen,  to  agree  upon  their  selection  of 
candidates.  Greatly  to  our  surprise,  neither  of  these 
difficulties  proved  serious.  We  easily  found  twenty 
men  who  agreed  to  serve,  and  they  were  men  whose 
names  would  carry  weight  in  the  community.  The  only 
question  that  was  raised  in  this  selection  concerned 
myself.  I  declined  to  serve  for  the  obvious  reason  that 
I  was  not  a  member  of  either  party.  But  here  again  my 
non-partisan  attitude  failed  to  protect  me,  and  the 
Republicans  insisted  on  electing  me,  probably  on  the 
ground  that  I  was  "not  a  Democrat."  The  committee 
was  composed  of  business  men,  professional  men,  one 
or  two  university  professors,  two  clergymen,  and  two 
sensible  workingmen. 

I  have  rarely  participated  in  a  more  interesting  task 
than  that  which  was  presented  to  this  committee.  We 
canvassed  fully  and  amicably  every  candidate  named 
on  the  two  tickets,  looking  up  the  record  of  every  one ; 
in  a  few  cases,  w'here  there  was  little  choice,  we  indorsed 
both  candidates,  and,  in  every  case,  we  reached  a  unani- 


382  RECOLLECTIONS 

mous  decision.  An  address  was  prepared,  signed  by  all 
of  us,  and  published  in  the  newspapers,  submitting  our 
list  of  recommendations,  explaining  that  twenty-five 
hundred  men  had  pledged  themselves  to  disregard  their 
party  connections  and  vote  for  these  candidates,  and 
asking  others  to  do  the  same.  The  result  was  the  election 
of  all  our  candidates  with  the  exception  of  one  consta- 
ble, and  generally  by  heavy  majorities. 

The  organization,  which  styled  itself  ''The  Municipal 
Voters'  League,"  had  no  permanent  officers  except  this 
"Committee  of  Twenty,"  which  was  by  vote  continued 
in  office,  and  authorized  to  fill  its  own  vacancies  and  to 
proceed  along  the  same  lines  whenever  occasion  might 
serve.  That  committee,  or  the  nucleus  of  it,  is  still  in 
existence,  but  the  time  seems  never  to  have  come  for 
calling  it  together;  that  time  may,  however,  arrive  at 
no  distant  day.  There  seems  to  be  no  good  reason  why 
such  a  committee,  Hke  the  famous  Municipal  Voters' 
League  of  Chicago,  might  not  perform  for  any  commu- 
nity a  most  valuable  service.  Its  usefulness  and  per- 
manence would  depend,  of  course,  on  the  honesty  and 
thoroughness  with  which  its  work  was  done.  If  it  could 
gain  the  confidence  of  the  community,  so  that  intelli- 
gent voters  felt  that  they  could  safely  follow  its  recom- 
mendations, it  could  largely  control  municipal  elections ; 
for  there  is  an  increasing  number  of  voters  who  are 
ready  to  ignore  party  in  municipal  afTairs  and  only 
wish  to  be  guided  in  their  choice  of  the  best  men. 

As  an  indication  of  the  growth  of  independency,  the 
story  of  our  League  is  significant.  It  is  not  a  local  con- 
dition, either.   Ohio,  which  is  strongly  Republican  in 


A  POLITICAL  RETROSPECT  383 

national  elections,  has  twice  elected  Democratic  gov- 
ernors; Minnesota  offers  a  still  more  striking  illustra- 
tion, and  all  over  the  land  the  day  of  the  independent 
voter  seems  to  have  arrived. 

One  finds,  in  a  survey  of  the  political  progress  of  the 
last  twenty-five  years,  much  that  is  reassuring.  The 
political  morality  of  the  present  decade,  as  compared 
with  that  of  the  Cleveland  and  Harrison  administra- 
tions, is  clearly  of  a  higher  grade.  This  judgment  ap- 
plies to  the  executive  departments;  anything  more 
immoral  than  the  general  attitude  of  the  national 
legislature  as  displayed  in  the  tariff  debate  of  1909,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  imagine. 

It  was  during  the  administration  of  Mr.  Harrison,  in 
1890,  that  Mr.  McKinley  succeeded  in  carrying  through 
Congress  the  tariff  bill  which  bears  his  name.  No  one 
who  knew  Major  McKinley  can  doubt  that  he  believed 
this  measure  to  be  fraught  with  blessings  to  the  Ameri- 
can workingman ;  it  was  his  ambition  to  create  in  this 
country  an  aristocracy  of  labor.  He  was  not  a  profound 
thinker,  and  these  intricate  problems  of  economics  were 
sometimes  beyond  his  grasp ;  the  naivete  of  his  reason- 
ings upon  them  was  frequently  more  engaging  than 
convincing.  There  must,  however,  have  dawned  upon 
his  mind,  now  and  then,  as  he  was  trying  to  adjust  the 
schedules,  a  suspicion  that  some  other  motives  besides 
the  good  of  the  country  were  finding  expression  in  the 
scramble  for  rates  that  should  be  prohibitory.  But 
Major  McKinley's  simple  faith  and  superficial  logic 
strongly  appealed  to  the  multitude,  his  tariff  measures 


384  RECOLLECTIONS 

gave  him  the  leadership  of  his  party,  and,  when  he  was 
defeated  for  Congress  in  1891,  made  him  the  Governor 
of  Ohio. 

We  had  him  in  Columbus  for  four  years,  and  he  com- 
mended himself  to  all  our  citizens  by  the  benignity  and 
grace  of  his  deportment,  and  the  sweetness  and  nobihty 
of  his  personal  character.  The  Governor  of  Ohio,  at  that 
time,  was  not  an  important  factor  in  the  hfe  of  the  com- 
monwealth. He  had  not  the  veto  power,  and  the  legis- 
lature was  not  in  the  habit  of  seriously  considering  his 
recommendations.  There  was  a  Uttle  petty  patronage 
at  his  disposal,  and  Governor  McEjnley  appeared  to  be 
making  the  most  of  this  in  the  way  of  strengthening 
his  hold  on  the  political  machine,  evidently  with  his 
eye  upon  the  future. 

Certain  scandalous  raids  were  made  by  some  of  the 
great  corporations  upon  the  legislature  about  this  time, 
engineered  by  some  of  our  great  statesmen,  and  while 
the  Governor  had  no  power  to  prevent  this,  he  did  not, 
so  far  as  I  remember,  exert  that  positive  moral  influence 
against  it  which  might  well  have  been  expected  of  him. 
On  the  whole,  I  must  confess  that  Mr.  McKinley's  career 
as  Governor  did  not  inspire  me  with  high  expectations 
of  his  success  as  an  administrator  of  national  affairs, 
and  in  this,  I  own,  I  was  happily  disappointed.  WiUiam 
McKinley,  as  President  of  the  United  States,  was  a 
much  larger  figure  than  William  McKinley  as  Governor 
of  Ohio.  When  the  heavy  responsibihties  fell  upon 
his  shoulders,  he  stood  up  under  them  with  a  firmness 
and  a  dignity  that  many  who  had  watched  his  career 
in  the  lower  position  hardly  expected  of  him.   The 


A  POLITICAL  RETROSPECT  385 

men  whom  he  gathered  about  him  were,  as  a  rule,  men 
of  great  ability  and  high  character,  —  John  Sherman, 
John  Hay,  John  D.  Long,  William  H.  Moody,  Ehhu 
Root,  E.  A.  Hitchcock,  James  Wilson;  no  President 
could  be  suspected  of  selfish  or  sinister  purposes  who 
called  into  his  Cabinet  such  men  as  these. 

One  sometimes  wonders  whether  a  Httle  stififer  fibre 
in  McKinley's  will  might  not  have  averted  the  Spanish 
War.  To  those  who  now  read  over  the  documents  which 
detail  the  negotiations  with  Spain  regarding  Cuban  af- 
fairs, it  seems  clear  that  the  Spanish  government  was 
ready  to  concede  all  that  we  had  a  right  to  demand.  But 
the  clamor  for  war,  from  the  beginning  of  the  incident, 
was  fierce  and  brutal ;  there  was  a  powerful  sentiment, 
much  of  it  outside  the  President's  party,  for  war  at  any 
price.  One  shudders  to  recall  the  temper  of  the  time  as 
it  found  expression  in  the  newspapers,  and  in  Congres- 
sional oratory.  I  heard  an  eminent  statesman  saving  in 
the  streets  of  Columbus  that  it  was  time  we  had  another 
war ;  it  would  give  to  many  of  our  young  men  the  oppor- 
tunity of  a  career  which  they  were  never  Ukely  to  find 
in  tlie  walks  of  peace.  I  wonder  if  we  have  not  moved 
forward  a  Uttle  since  that  day ;  it  seems  to  me  that  a 
sentiment  as  atrocious  as  that  could  hardly  be  ven- 
tured in  these  times  by  persons  claiming  to  be  civilized. 

Doubtless  there  was  much  in  the  conduct  of  Spain 
which  ought  to  have  kindled  indignation ;  and  when  the 
tragedy  of  the  Maine  occurred,  it  was  hard  to  restrain 
the  popular  wrath.  Still,  the  action  of  Spain  regarding 
this,  as  we  now  know,  was  all  that  we  could  have  desired, 
and  the  hot  haste  with  which  our  Congress  insisted  on 


386  RECOLLECTIONS 

making  ready  for  war  was,  to  say  the  least,  unseemly. 
It  is  clear  that  Mr.  McKinley  did  his  best  to  restrain  the 
rampant  jingoism  of  Congress,  and  but  for  the  report  of 
Mr.  Proctor  upon  the  condition  of  the  reconcentrados  in 
Cuba,  he  might  have  succeeded.  But  that  testimony  of 
a  sober-minded  man  concerning  the  enormities  of  the 
Spanish  administration  in  Cuba  swept  away  the  ethical 
restraints  and  let  the  elemental  passions  loose. 

There  was  food  for  much  reflection  in  the  movement 
of  the  popular  mind  in  that  series  of  events.  All  kinds 
of  motives  mingle  to  produce  effective  public  opinion; 
the  ferocity  of  the  brute,  the  greed  of  the  trader,  the 
ambition  of  the  self-seeker,  the  narrow  patriotism  of  the 
jingo,  the  antipathies  of  race,  the  bigotries  of  rehgion, 
the  passion  for  freedom,  the  hatred  of  cruelty,  the  senti- 
ment of  humanity,  —  all  these  were  seething  together 
in  the  public  mind  in  those  early  days  of  1898. 

I  am  sure  that  the  baser  passions  would  not  have 
prevailed  in  that  hour ;  that  the  final  word  for  war  was 
spoken  by  the  impulse  of  humanity.  Yet  I  do  not  think 
that  those  who  uttered  that  word  were  so  fully  ac- 
quainted as  they  should  have  been  with  the  attitude  of 
the  Spanish  government ;  and  I  have  doubted  whether 
President  McKinley  gave  the  people  all  the  information 
they  ought  to  have  had  in  that  critical  moment. 

It  was  the  parting  of  the  ways  with  this  nation.  From 
that  hour  she  has  been  constrained  to  be  a  world-power. 
Her  intervention  on  behalf  of  Cuba  launched  her  upon  a 
new  career.  From  this  destiny  she  had  steadily  drawn 
back,  but  it  is  now  inevitable,  and  she  has  no  right  to 
shrink  from  it.   The  well-being  of  the  world  is  to  be 


A  POLITICAL  RETROSPECT  387 

settled,  more  and  more,  by  consultation  and  cooperation 
among  the  world-powers,  and  this  nation  must  take  her 
share  of  the  responsibility.  Into  this  august  business 
Mr.  McKinley  introduced  us.  It  was  good  judgment  and 
good  fortune  that  guided  him  to  the  choice  of  John  Hay, 
first  as  ambassador  to  England,  and  then  as  Secretary  of 
State.  Nothing  finer  in  the  way  of  diplomacy  has  ever 
been  recorded  than  Hay's  management  of  the  Chinese 
question.  What  worlds  of  confusion  and  misery  might 
have  been  let  loose  in  the  far  East,  during  the  last  ten 
years,  if  it  had  not  been  for  that  far-sighted  intervention ! 
And  what  a  glorious  new  note  it  is  that  we  hear  resound- 
ing in  Hay's  state  papers  —  that  the  Golden  Rule  is  and 
must  be  the  foundation  of  international  law ! 

We  must  give  Mr.  McKinley's  administration  due 
credit  for  these  great  achievements.  And  while  its  record 
is  not  flawless,  and  sinister  forces  were  gaining  strength 
here  and  there,  yet  the  President's  grasp  upon  affairs 
seemed  to  be  strengthening,  and  his  last  utterance, 
his  speech  on  reciprocity,  the  day  before  his  assassina- 
tion, was  by  far  the  most  convincing  word  that  he  had 
ever  spoken,  ^^^lat  a  tragedy  it  was  that  he  should  be 
stricken  do^\^l  at  the  moment  of  his  life  when  his  outlook 
was  widest  and  his  purpose  strongest !  And  what  a  piti- 
ful commentary  it  is  upon  the  blindness  of  the  insurrec- 
tionary elements  in  our  society,  that  they  should  select 
for  slaughter  such  a  man  as  William  McKinley,  — a  man 
whose  deepest  sympathies  were  vdth.  the  lowHest  classes, 
and  who  could  not,  intentionally,  have  added  a  straw 
to  the  burden  that  any  poor  man  was  bearing !  Some 
things  are  so  horrible  that  they  are  simply  absurd. 


388  RECOLLECTIONS 

With  the  passmg  of  President  McKinley  there  moveg 
promptly  to  the  centre  of  the  stage  the  most  forceful 
figure  yet  seen  in  our  national  history.  I  believe  that  I 
can  trust  myself  to  speak  soberly  of  Theodore  Roose- 
velt, for,  though  my  admiration  and  affection  for  him 
are  deep  and  large,  I  am  not  unconscious  of  his  limita- 
tions, and,  in  some  things,  I  find  myself  in  sharp  dis- 
agreement with  him.  With  his  eagerness  to  increase  our 
armament  I  have  no  sympathy ;  I  believe  that  the  day 
of  disarmament  is  nigh,  even  at  the  doors,  and  that  our 
nation  is  called  of  God  to  take  the  initiative  in  it.  We 
are  not  in  danger  of  aggression  from  any  power  under 
the  sun ;  and  it  is  perfectly  safe  for  us  to  stop  our  ship- 
building and  Uft  up  the  standards  of  peace  before  all  the 
nations.  The  peoples  everywhere  will  respond  to  that 
call  with  a  mighty  enthusiasm,  and  they  will  compel  their 
governments  to  give  heed  to  it.  "When  the  British  For- 
eign Secretary  declares  that  the  increase  of  armaments, 
within  the  past  ten  years,  is  a  satire  upon  civilization ; 
when  the  whole  world  sees  that  the  mere  dread  of  war 
is  driving  all  the  great  nations  into  extravagances  of 
expenditure  that  are  crippling  industry  every^'here  and 
threatening  national  bankruptcy,  it  is  time  that  some 
great  nation  should  pause  in  this  mad  race  to  ruin  and 
call  a  halt  to  the  rest.  Our  nation  is  the  one  that  can 
speak  wdth  most  commanding  voice.  It  is  her  manifest 
destiny  to  lead  the  nations  in  the  paths  of  peace,  and  her 
opportunity  is  here,  for  peace  has  already  become  not 
merely  a  possibiUty,  but  a  stem  economic  necessity. 

In  his  strenuous  insistence  upon  multiplying  the  big 
ships,  Mr.  Roosevelt  seems  to  me,  therefore,  to  be  setting 


A  POLITICAL  RETROSPECT  389 

himself  against  the  things  that  he  most  strongly  stands 
for.  I  Uke  it  not,  any  more  than  I  hke  his  present  pas- 
times in  Africa :  these  exhibitions  seem  to  me  something : 
other  than  his  best  self.  His  best  self  appears  in  that 
glorious  deed  by  which  he  put  an  end  to  the  war  between 
Russia  and  Japan ;  in  the  return  of  the  indenmity  money 
to  China ;  in  the  convention  with  Japan,  negotiated  by 
Mr.  Root,  but  giving  expression  to  Mr.  Roosevelt's  good 
will.  No  man  has  ever  done  so  much  to  promote  peace 
on  earth.  And  this  is  the  kind  of  work  he  is  going  to  do 
for  the  world  in  the  days  that  are  left  to  him. 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  name  a  number  of  things 
in  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  fallen  below  himself,  in  the 
seven  years  of  his  public  service.  But  I  wonder  whether 
any  man  with  such  tremendous  energies,  always  in  full 
play,  ever  made  fewer  mistakes.  And  certainly  no  man 
since  Lincoln  has  poured  into  the  life  of  this  nation 
such  a  stream  of  vitalizing  influence. 

My  interest  in  Mr.  Roosevelt  began  a  long  time  ago. 
On  the  night  of  Mr.  McKinley's  first  election,  a  Uttle 
group  of  men,  waiting  in  our  church  parlors  for  returns, 
balloted  for  the  next  President.  WTien  the  votes  were 
counted,  there  was  one  for  Theodore  Roosevelt,  which 
was  plausibly  charged  to  me.  When  he  was  poUce  com- 
missioner in  New  York,  something  that  I  had  said  or 
done  drew  from  him  a  friendly  letter,  which  opened  the 
way  for  me  to  meet  him,  on  my  next  visit  to  the  metrop- 
olis, and  the  acquaintance  then  begun  has  been  of  great 
profit  to  me.  He  came  once,  at  my  invitation,  to  Colum- 
bus, and  spoke  to  our  citizens  on  the  problem  of  the  city ; 
and  while  I  have  never  belonged  to  the  inner  circle  of 


390  RECOLLECTIONS 

his  intimate  advisers,  I  have  known  him  well  enough  to 
feel  sure  of  his  ruhng  motives. 

In  one  of  my  early  conversations  with  him  he  spoke 
of  the  insecurity  of  his  tenure  of  office,  sajong :  "  I  don't 
know  how  long  I  shall  be  in  public  Ufe.  The  politicians 
may  not  continue  to  want  me ;  and  they  have  effectual 
ways  of  getting  rid  of  a  man  when  they  are  done  with 
him ;  but  I  shall  try  to  do  what  I  think  right,  and  when 
they  are  through  with  me,  I  think  that  I  can  get  a  living 
for  my  children  with  my  pen,  or  in  some  other  honest 
way."  My  answer  was:  "Nothing  can  keep  you  from 
going  much  further  but  your  own  default,  and  you  are 
not  a  defaulter."  Yet  those  who  knew  him  best  could 
hardly  have  dreamed  that  he  would  so  soon  be  at  the 
top  of  the  world. 

The  essential  loyalty  of  the  man  was  at  once  revealed 
when  he  reappointed  all  the  members  of  McKinley's 
Cabinet,  and  announced  his  purpose  of  carrying  into 
effect,  just  so  far  as  he  could  do  so,  the  poUcy  of  his 
predecessor.  It  was  a  fine  sense  of  honor  which  thus 
constrained  him;  the  other  Vice-Presidents  who  have 
been  promoted  by  death  have  recognized  no  such  ob- 
Ugation.  The  fidehty  with  which  he  kept  this  virtual 
trust  has  never  been  questioned. 

For  myself,  I  must  confess  that  the  elevation  of  this 
man  to  the  place  of  power,  just  at  this  juncture,  was 
a  reason  for  profound  thankfulness.  That  critical  times 
had  come  upon  this  nation  was  evident  enough.  Vast 
combinations  of  capital  were  exerting  a  power  of  oppres- 
sion such  as  no  aristocracy  of  the  Old  World  would  dare 
to  attempt;  the  railway  managers  were  their  thralls; 


A  POLITICAL  RETROSPECT  391 

some  of  the  necessaries  of  life  were  largely  under  their 
control;  by  daring  ventures  in  finance  they  had  con- 
trived to  estabhsh  enormous  "vested  rights"  in  the 
form  of  inflated  capital  of  public-service  companies; 
every  year  they  were  finding  new  ways  of  creating  gi- 
gantic debts,  the  interest  of  which  w^ould  be  a  perpetual 
charge  upon  the  producing  classes.  The  extent  to  which 
this  exploitation  of  the  whole  population  had  been  car- 
ried by  "big  business  "  was  something  fearful.  The  pro- 
cess went  on  noiselessly ;  silken  toils  were  silently  spun 
and  woven  about  the  limbs  of  the  workers  in  their  sleep, 
and  there  were  few  who  knew  why  their  progress  was 
impeded.  That  the  burdens  thus  imposed  would  at 
length  become  intolerable,  and  that  revolution  would  be 
the  issue,  was  plain  to  all  who  could  discern  the  signs  of 
the  times,  but  their  voices  fell  on  deaf  ears.  Fortunate 
it  , was  for  this  country  that  the  arrival  of  Theodore 
Roosevelt  at  the  head  of  the  nation  was  no  longer  de- 
ferred. Here  was  a  man  with  eyes  to  see  the  extent  and 
the  enormity  of  this  veiled  injustice,  with  words  to  de- 
scribe it,  and  with  an  arm  to  smite  it.  The  service  which 
he  has  rendered  to  this  nation  in  bringing  into  the  light 
these  furtive  plunderings,  in  awakening  the  conscience 
of  the  land  against  them,  and  in  setting  the  machinery 
of  the  law  in  motion  for  their  prevention  and  punish- 
ment, is  one  of  the  greatest  services  that  it  has  ever 
•  fallen  to  any  man  to  render.  He  has  not  wrought  alone ; 
a  multitude  of  others,  some  of  them  wisely  and  effect- 
ively and  some  noisily  and  passionately,  have  been  ex- 
posing these  injustices ;  but  no  one  else  has  done  a  hun- 
dredth part  of  what  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  done  to  enlighten 


392  RECOLLECTIONS 

the  people  with  regard  to  them,  and  to  put  them  in  the 
way  of  extinction.  To  his  mind,  it  is  entirely  clear  that 
the  robbery  which  is  effected  by  a  rebate  arrangement, 
or  by  the  watering  of  the  stock  of  a  street  railway,  is  just 
as  heinous  as  that  perpetrated  by  a  burglar  or  a  foot- 
pad, and  far  more  dangerous  to  the  peace  of  society ; 
and  he  has  contrived  to  get  that  idea  into  the  minds  of 
a  great  many  Americans,  —  of  so  many  that  it  is  going 
to  be  increasingly  unhealthy  to  carry  on  that  kind  of 
business  in  this  country  in  the  future. 

The  social  conditions  which  Mr,  Roosevelt  confronted 
were  such  as  had  never  before  appeared.  The  ascend- 
ency of  commercialism  had  assumed  new  and  overshad- 
owing proportions;  the  physical  development  of  the 
continent  had  created  conditions  not  clearly  covered  by 
statutory  regulation,  in  which  human  greed  found  a 
large  opportunity. 

The  great  mass  of  wealth  [says  Professor  Cooley]  is 
accumulated  by  solid  qualities  —  energy,  tenacity, 
shrewdness,  and  the  like  —  which  may  co-exist  with 
great  moral  refinement  or  with  the  opposite.  As  a  group, 
however,  [men  of  wealth]  are  liable  to  moral  deficiencies. 
.  .  .  There  is,  especially,  a  certain  moral  irresponsibility 
which  is  natural  to  those  who  have  broken  away  from 
customary  limitations  and  restramts,  and  are  coursing  at 
will  over  an  unfenced  territory.  I  mean  that  business 
enterprise,  like  military  enterprise,  deals  largely  with 
relations  as  to  which  there  are  no  settled  rules  of  morality, 
no  constraining  law  or  public  opinion.  Such  conditions 
breed  in  the  actor  a  Machiavellian  opportunism.  Since 
it  is  hard  to  say  what  is  just  and  honest  in  the  vast  and 
abstract  operations  of  finance,  human  nature  is  apt  to 


A  POLITICAL  RETROSPECT  393 

cease  looking  for  a  standard  and  to  seize  booty  wherever 
and  however  it  safely  can.  Hence  the  truly  piratical 
character  of  many  of  our  great  transactions.  And,  in 
smaller  matters  also,  as  in  escaping  taxation,  it  is  often 
fatally  easy  for  the  rich  to  steal.  It  must  be  allowed  that 
such  ascendency  as  the  capitalist  class  has  rests,  in  part 
at  least,  upon  service.  That  is  to  say,  its  members  have 
had  an  important  function  to  perform,  and  in  perform- 
ing that  function  have  found  themselves  in  a  position 
to  grasp  wealth.  ...  At  the  same  time,  it  is  plain  that 
a  large  part  of  the  accumulation  of  wealth  —  hard,  un- 
fortunately, to  distinguish  from  other  parts  —  is  accom- 
phshed  not  by  social  service,  but,  as  just  intimated,  by 
something  akin  to  piracy.  This  is  not  so  much  the  pecul- 
iar wickedness  of  a  predatory  class  as  a  tendency  in  all  of 
us  to  abuse  power  when  not  under  definite  legal  or  moral 
control.  The  vast  transactions  associated  with  modern 
industry  have  come  very  little  under  such  control,  and 
offer  a  field  for  freebooting  such  as  the  world  has  never 
seen.^ 

Such  were  the  conditions  which  Mr.  Roosevelt  faced, 
at  the  beginning  of  his  administration.  Vast  combina- 
tions of  W'Calth,  created  by  the  law  and  endowed  with 
superhuman  powers,  were  using  these  powers  for  pur- 
poses of  spoliation  —  plundering  the  many  for  the 
enrichment  of  the  few.  To  disentangle  this  piratical 
business  from  honest  business,  to  protect  legitimate  en- 
terprise and  prevent  and  punish  predatory  schemes,  — 
this  was  the  task  set  before  him.  Clearly,  this  must 
somehow  be  done ;  unless  it  could  be,  democratic  gov- 
ernment was  a  failure.  And  Mr.  Roosevelt  addressed 

*  Social  Organization,  pp.  259-261. 


394  RECOLLECTIONS 

himself  to  this  Herculean  task  with  a  courage,  a  de- 
termination, and  an  enthusiasm  which  have  won  for 
him  the  admiration  of  the  world. 

The  men  who  have  been  making  enormous  fortunes  by- 
piratical  methods,  and  those  who  have  wished  to  do  so, 
have  been  greatly  enraged  by  Mr.  Roosevelt's  activity; 
they  hate  him  with  a  perfect  hatred,  and  with  honest 
cause ;  they  have  done  what  they  could  to  discredit  and 
destroy  him.  But  the  people  know  that  he  has  made  no 
war  on  honest  industry ;  that  he  has  only  sought  to  put 
an  end  to  plunder  and  to  give  every  man  a  fair  chance. 
The  Roosevelt  pohcies  are  fairly  well  understood  by  the 
people,  and  any  attempt  to  recede  from  them  will  pro- 
voke a  reaction  which  will  not  be  profitable  to  the  oppos- 
ing interests.  The  Roosevelt  pohcies  mean  simply  hon- 
esty, justice,  fair  play ;  and  any  business  which  is  too  big 
to  learn  these  lessons  is  too  big  to  live  in  this  country. 

Even  some  of  those  on  whom  the  heavy  hand  of  the 
government  has  fallen  seem  to  recognize  the  justice  of 
the  punishment.  The  New  York  Central  Railroad  has 
had,  I  believe,  some  drastic  fines  to  pay  for  rebating, 
but  the  president  of  that  railroad  —  a  recently  elected 
president  —  is  now  heard  saying:  ''One  of  the  crying 
evils  of  railway  management  in  the  past  (and  nothing 
but  the  strong  arm  of  the  law  would  ever  have  stopped 
it)  was  the  practice  of  discrimination  in  favor  of  large 
shippers  as  against  those  that  shipped  little,  the  giving 
of  rebates,  and  the  distribution  of  passes  to  secure  the 
business.  We  know  better  now.  We  know  that  the  man 
who  ships  little,  no  matter  how  Uttle,  must  have  the  same 
unit  price,  whether  by  the  hundred  pounds  or  by  the 


\ 


A  POLITICAL  RETROSPECT  395 

carload,  as  the  man  who  ships  much,  no  matter  how 
much."  Yes,  some  of  us  do  know  better.  And  we  shall 
not  forget  who  taught  us.  For  though  we  had  laws 
enough  to  prevent  all  these  robberies,  they  were  prac- 
tically a  dead  letter ;  it  was  the  will  of  Theodore  Roose- 
velt that  gave  them  life  and  power. 

To  one  episode  in  the  administration  of  Mr.  Roosevelt 
I  will  venture  to  refer,  as  it  has  a  special  interest  for  me. 
The  strike  of  the  anthracite  coal-miners,  in  the  summer 
of  1902,  brought  anxiety  to  all  of  us.  It  was  the  first 
thoroughly  organized  struggle  of  the  miners  of  that  re- 
gion for  improved  conditions;  their  leaders  seemed  to 
have  their  forces  well  in  hand,  and  on  the  other  side  the 
temper  of  the  railway  presidents  appeared  to  be  excep- 
tionally obdurate.  Their  positive  statement  that  there 
could  be  no  arbitration  was  a  defiance  which  the  men 
could  scarcely  decline,  and  the  entire  army  of  bitumi- 
nous miners  stood  behind  the  anthracite  men  with  strong 
assurances  of  support.  The  terrible  consequences  of  the 
prolongation  of  this  struggle  to  the  poor  of  the  eastern 
cities  made  the  outlook  most  disquieting.  That  some- 
thing must  be  done  to  break  the  deadlock  was  e\ddent, 
and  all  hearts  naturally  turned  toward  President  Roose- 
velt as  the  one  man  who  could  undertake,  most  hope- 
fully, this  work  of  mediation.  The  editor  of  the  "Cin- 
cinnati Post,"  a  daily  newspaper  circulating  largely 
among  the  working-classes,  came  to  Columbus  to  con- 
sult with  me  about  this.  He  wished  to  circulate,  widely, 
a  petition  to  the  President,  asking  him  to  intervene,  and 
he  desired  me  to  frame  the  petition.  ReaHzing  that 
much  depended  on  the  way  in  which  this  appeal  was 


396  RECOLLECTIONS 

made,  I  shrank  from  taking  this  responsibility.  There 
was  a  question,  too,  whether  the  President  would  under- 
take such  a  task;  and  it  might  embarrass  him  to  put 
upon  him  the  necessity  of  refusing  it.  If  he  should  under- 
take it  and  should  fail  in  it,  that  would  be  unfortunate 
for  him.  I  asked  the  editor  to  let  me  think  about  it  an 
hour,  at  the  end  of  which  time  I  found  myself  convinced 
that  Mr.  Roosevelt  would  neither  refuse  the  task  nor 
fail  in  it;  and  that  a  strong  demand  laid  on  him  by 
the  people  might  enable  him  to  do  what  he  would  not 
feel  Uke  doing  on  his  own  initiative.  I  therefore  wrote 
this  petition :  — 

To  His  Excellency  Theodore  Roosevelt,  President 

of  the  United  States : 

We  whose  names  are  underwritten,  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  most  earnestly  ask  you  to  use  your  good 
offices  in  bringing  to  an  end  the  unhappy  strife  now 
prevailing  in  the  coal  regions. 

Some  of  us  are  men  and  women  who  work  with  our 
hands;  some  of  us  are  earning  our  livelihood  in  other 
ways ;  many  of  us  are  losers  now  by  this  conflict ;  all  of 
us  are  appalled  by  the  prospect  of  suffering  before  the 
country  if  it  be  not  speedily  terminated ;  and  we  feel  that 
we  have  a  right  to  call  upon  you  as  our  representative  to 
see  what  you  can  do  to  make  peace. 

We  do  not  ask  you  to  use  any  official  power  in  the  mat- 
ter, for  you  have  none  to  use ;  we  only  ask  you  as  the 
first  citizen  of  this  nation  to  mediate  between  these  con- 
tending parties. 

You  can  speak  as  no  one  else  can  speak  for  the  plain 
people  of  the  country.  Every  workingman  knows  that 
you  are  his  friend;  no  capitalist  of  common  sense  can 


A  POLITICAL  RETROSPECT  397 

imagine  that  you  are  his  enemy.  The  fact  that  others 
have  spoken  without  effect  does  not  shake  our  faith  that 
your  words  of  counsel  and  persuasion  would  be  heeded. 

We  want  no  injustice  done  to  either  party  in  this  con- 
flict. We  want  no  coercion  to  be  used  or  threatened. 
Coercion  is  the  game  both  sides  are  now  playing ;  we  want 
them  to  stop  that,  and  reason  together.  No  question  of 
this  kind  is  ever  settled  rightly  or  finally  by  coercion. 

We  recognize  the  fact  that  you  would  hesitate  to  inter- 
pose, even  in  the  interests  of  peace  and  good  will,  lest 
you  should  seem  to  be  exceeding  your  prerogative.  But 
if  the  voices  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  your  fellow 
citizens  should  summon  you  to  such  a  task,  you  would 
not,  we  are  persuaded,  shrink  from  undertaking  it. 

This  is  not  business,  Mr.  President,  it  is  not  politics;  it 
is  something  much  higher  and  finer.  May  God  help  you 
to  render  this  great  service  to  your  country,  and  crown 
you  with  the  blessing  that  belongs  to  the  peacemakers. 

I  have  put  this  petition  on  record  here  because  it  is 
part  of  the  history  of  the  time.  The  newspaper  which 
suggested  it  printed  and  circulated  widely  the  peti- 
tion ;  many  church  congregations  and  other  assemblies 
adopted  it ;  large  numbers  of  copies  of  it  went  to  Wash- 
ington. Many  other  appeals  were  made  to  the  President ; 
this  was  one  of  numerous  infiuences  which  induced  him 
to  take  up  this  task,  the  successful  performance  of  which 
fills  one  of  the  bright  pages  in  a  great  record  of  patriotic 
service. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

PARTNERSHIP  WITH   PLUNDERERS 

Shall  not  that  Western  Goth,  of  whom  we  spoke, 

So  fiercely  practical,  so  keen  of  eye, 

Find  out,  some  day,  that  nothing  pays  but  God, 

Served  whether  on  the  smoke-shut  battle-field. 

In  work  obscure  done  honestly,  or  vote 

For  truth  unpopular,  or  faith  maintained 

To  ruinous  convictions,  or  good  deeds 

Wrought  for  good's  sake,  mindless  of  heaven  or  hell? 

Shall  he  not  learn  that  all  prosperity, 

Whose  bases  stretch  not  deeper  than  the  sense, 

Is  but  a  trick  of  this  world's  atmosphere, 

A  desert-born  mirage  of  spire  and  dome. 

Or  find  too  late,  the  Past's  long  lesson  missed, 

That  dust  the  prophets  shake  from  off  their  feet 

Grows  heavy  to  drag  down  both  tower  and  wall  ? 

James  RusseU  Lowell. 

I  AM  often  inquired  of  respecting  the  beliefs  and 
practices  of  "the  Congregational  Church."  I  can  only- 
answer  by  asking  another  question:  "Which  Congre- 
gational church?"  At  the  last  account  there  were  5989 
Congregational  churches  in  the  United  States,  each  of 
which  is  free  to  frame  its  own  creed,  and  organize  its 
work  in  its  own  way.  There  is  no  such  body  as  "The 
Congregational  Church  of  the  United  States,"  as  there  is 
a  Presbyterian  Church  of  the  United  States,  or  a  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church  of  the  United  States.  The  Con- 
gregational churches  cooperate  in  many  ways  for  mis- 
sionary and  philanthropic  purposes ;  they  give  and  take 
advice,  through  councils  called  for  the  purpose ;  but  they 


PARTNERSHIP  WITH  PLUNDERERS    399 

have  no  central  government  with  authority  to  make 
laws  for  them  or  impose  creeds  upon  them.  There  is  not, 
and  cannot  be,  as  I  have  explained  on  a  former  page, 
any  uniform  creed  to  which  all  Congregationalists  must 
subscribe.  There  is,  however,  a  general  agreement  in 
teaching,  and  a  good  measure  of  uniformity  in  practice ; 
and  there  has  always  been  a  large  cooperation  in  Chris- 
tian work.  About  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century 
the  need  of  a  closer  affiliation  of  these  churches  began 
to  be  strongly  felt,  and  in  1871  "The  National  Council 
of  the  Congregational  Churches"  (not  of  the  Congrega- 
tional Church)  was  formed,  its  object  being  to  bring 
the  churches  into  closer  fellowship,  and  to  give  greater 
efficiency  to  the  enterprises  of  evangelization  and  phi- 
lanthropy which  they  were  prosecuting  together.  That 
Council  meets  every  three  years ;  it  brings  together  about 
five  hundred  representatives  of  the  churches ;  it  consults 
respecting  our  various  missionary  enterprises ;  it  studies 
the  ethical  and  social  problems  with  which  the  churches 
are  grappling;  it  considers  how  friendship  and  helpful 
relations  may  be  promoted  between  Congregational 
Christians  and  Christians  of  other  names.  It  has  no 
power  whatever ;  it  cannot  ordain  or  depose  a  minister, 
it  cannot  establish  or  dissolve  a  church,  it  cannot  define 
or  punish  heresy,  it  can  only  recommend  to  the  churches 
and  the  benevolent  societies  represented  in  its  organiza- 
tion such  measures  as  seem  good  to  the  majority  of  its 
members.  Such  moral  influence  as  this  has  been  found 
to  be  adequate  for  all  the  purposes  of  a  Christian  organi- 
zation. It  is  about  all  that  any  ecclesiastical  body  pos- 
sesses in  this  day  and  age ;  not  many  churches  are  seek- 


400  RECOLLECTIONS 

ing  to  enforce  their  decrees  or  their  dogmas  by  guns  or 
clubs.  The  National  Council  has  done  much  to  promote 
the  soHdarity  of  our  fellowship;  it  has  enabled  us  to 
value  more  highly  the  things  we  have  in  common ;  it 
has  brought  some  of  us  almost  to  the  point  of  being 
willing  to  call  our  communion  the  American  Congre- 
gational Church. 

The  presiding  officer  of  this  body  bears  the  ancient 
title  of  Moderator,  and  to  this  office  I  had  the  great 
honor  to  be  chosen,  at  the  meeting  in  Des  Moines,  Iowa, 
in  October,  1904.  The  office  is  one  in  which  no  power 
is  vested,  and  to  which  no  emoluments  are  attached. 
The  moderator  presides  over  the  meeting  at  which  he  is 
chosen ;  becomes,  ex  officio,  a  member  of  the  Standing 
Committee  of  the  Council  for  the  next  three  years ;  calls 
the  next  meeting  of  the  Council  to  order,  and  presides 
until  his  successor  is  chosen ;  and  on  the  first  evening  of 
that  meeting,  dehvers  an  address.  This  has  generally 
been  regarded  as  the  extent  of  his  function.  But  my 
predecessor,  the  Reverend  Dr.  Bradford,  of  New  Jersey, 
had  ventured  to  enlarge  this  function.  He  had  visited, 
by  invitation,  the  churches  in  many  locaUties,  had 
spoken  at  various  Congregational  assembhes,  and  had 
done  much  to  strengthen  the  bonds  of  fellowship  among 
the  churches.  So  grateful  had  this  service  been  that  the 
Council  which  elected  me  by  resolution  requested  me  to 
continue  the  same  kind  of  work,  exercising  a  kind  of 
ministry  at  large,  as  opportunities  might  be  given  me. 
That  proved  to  be  a  large  order.  Such  opportunities 
were  numerous,  and  the  next  three  years  were  busy 
years.  The  care  of  my  church  could  not,  of  course,  be  re- 


PARTNERSHIP  WITH  PLUNDERERS  401 

linquished,  and  I  managed  to  be  in  my  own  pulpit  most  of 
the  Sundays;  but  if  to  be  "in  joumeyings  often"  is  the 
proof  of  an  apostolate,  mine  was  well  established.  My 
itinerancy  took  me  to  twenty-five  states  of  the  Union, 
led  me  four  times  across  the  continent,  —  going  and 
coming,  —  each  time  by  a  different  route,  and  called 
on  me  for  many  addresses  before  state  and  local  asso- 
ciations, conferences,  and  clubs.  It  was  a  laborious, 
but  a  delightful  service ;  the  moderator,  as  the  symbol 
of  the  unity  of  the  denomination,  and  a  witness  to  a 
desire  to  draw  the  churches  into  a  closer  fellowship, 
was  welcomed  everywhere  with  great  cordiality. 

It  was  not,  of  course,  the  business  of  the  moderator 
to  meddle  with  the  business  of  the  various  assemblies 
which  he  was  called  to  address,  or  to  attempt  to  exer- 
cise any  influence  in  local  affairs ;  all  that  he  could  do 
was  to  discuss  the  larger  interests  which  were  common 
to  all  the  churches,  and  to  point  out  as  best  he  could 
the  lines  in  which  the  Spirit  was  leading  them. 

In  the  early  spring  of  1905  our  churches  were  sur- 
prised by  the  announcement  that  a  gift  of  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars  had  been  made  to  our  Foreign  Mission 
Board  by  the  president  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company. 
The  donor  was  not  a  member  of  our  communion.  The 
first  statements  respecting  the  gift  conveyed  the  im- 
pression that  it  had  not  been  sohcited,  that  the  only 
agency  of  the  Board  in  the  matter  had  been  that  of 
a  passive  recipient  of  a  gift  brought  to  its  doors.  The 
explanations  of  the  authorities,  and  all  the  earlier  news- 
paper comments,  assumed  that  this  was  so.  It  was 
admitted  by  some  of  these  apologists  that  it  would  not 


402  RECOLLECTIONS 

have  been  right  for  the  Board  to  seek  contributions  from 
such  a  source ;  but  that  when  they  were  freely  offered, 
they  could  not  be  rationally  refused.  These  representa- 
tions and  admissions  clearly  indicated  some  uneasiness 
of  mind  on  the  part  of  the  recipients,  and  made  it  plain 
that  the  nature  of  the  alhance  into  which  they  had 
entered  was  not  altogether  satisfactory  to  them. 

For  there  had  come,  very  promptly,  an  emphatic 
declaration  against  the  acceptance  of  money  from  this 
source.  As  soon  as  the  gift  was  announced,  I  wrote  a 
letter  to  the  "CongregationaUst,"  protesting  against 
the  action  by  which  the  Mission  Board  was  drawing  our 
churches  into  a  dishonorable  alhance ;  declaring  that  the 
money  thus  bestowed  had  been  iniquitously  gained,  and 
that  we  could  not  accept  it  without  being  partakers  of 
the  iniquity.  Similar  protests  came  from  a  considerable 
number  of  the  best  men  in  our  denomination.  A  strong 
group  of  ministers  in  the  vicinity  of  Boston  took  up 
the  matter  with  vigor  and  united  in  a  dignified  and 
temperate  memorial  to  the  Board  against  the  reception 
of  the  gift.  Presently,  however,  it  transpired  that  the 
money  had  been  paid  over  and  most  of  it  expended 
before  any  announcement  was  made ;  the  protest  against 
the  acceptance  was  therefore  futile.  That  the  money 
should  be  returned  was  the  clear  dictate  of  sound  moral- 
ity, but  of  that  there  seemed  httle  hope.  The  practical 
question  concerned  the  future  action  of  this  Board,  and 
of  our  other  missionary  organizations.  That  a  great 
wrong  had  been  done  and  a  serious  injury  inflicted  upon 
the  churches  represented  in  this  society  seemed  to  some 
of  us  very  clear;  that  wrong  must  be  confessed  with 


PARTNERSHIP  WITH  PLUNDERERS    403 

shame ;  the  question  was  whether  it  should  be  repeated. 
On  that  question  there  arose  a  debate  in  which  the 
whole  country  was  enlisted.  It  must  be  said  that  the 
debate  revealed  a  widespread  need  of  elementary  in- 
struction in  the  first  principles  of  etliics.  It  exhibited,  in 
a  startling  manner,  the  extent  to  which  the  moral  per- 
ceptions even  of  leaders  in  the  church  have  been  blunted 
and  confused  by  the  worship  of  money.  So  much  have 
we  all  become  accustomed  to  think  and  say,  in  our 
religious,  educational,  and  philanthropic  enterprises,  — 
"The  one  thing  that  we  need  is  more  money,"  —  that 
it  has  become  quite  too  easy  to  subordinate  many  of  the 
higher  considerations  for  the  sake  of  getting  money. 

The  prompt  answer  of  many  amateur  moraUsts  to 
our  protest  was  that  money  has  no  moral  character; 
that  one  man's  dollar  is  as  good  as  another  man's  — 
will  buy  as  many  Bibles,  pay  as  many  missionary  sal- 
aries, do  as  much  good.  When  we  replied  to  this  by 
asking  whether  money  contributed  by  highwajnnen 
and  pirates  —  booty  which  they  were  kno\\Ti  to  have 
taken  from  their  victims  —  should  be  received  with 
thanks  by  churches  and  missionary  societies,  it  was  gen- 
erally admitted  that  that  would  be  inadvisable.  Even 
the  law  would  discourage  this  kind  of  benevolence. 

The  plea  was  then  made  that  money  to  which  the 
owner  had  a  clear  legal  title  must  be  taken  without 
questioning.  But  there  is  much  to  which  there  is  a 
clear  legal  title  which  differs  but  little,  when  weighed 
in  the  scales  of  a  sound  morality,  from  stolen  money ; 
and  the  proposal  to  stand  on  a  bare  legality  did  not 
commend  itself  to  sensitive  consciences. 


404  RECOLLECTIONS 

It  was  then  asserted  that  a  good  share  of  the  money 
contributed  for  religious  and  charitable  purposes  has 
been  obtained  by  doubtful  means,  and  that  it  is  impos- 
sible for  us  to  make  discriminations.  To  this,  the  answer 
was  that  we  proposed  no  quixotic  inquisition  into  the 
character  of  the  offerings  which  are  thrown  upon  the 
contribution  plate ;  we  would  assume  that  all  these  are 
honest  dollars  unless  we  knew  the  contrary.  Moreover, 
when  any  man  makes  an  offering  in  a  wholly  imper- 
sonal way,  without  calling  attention  to  his  gift  or  seek- 
ing recognition  for  it,  we  have  no  call  to  investigate 
his  motives  or  his  character.  The  case  in  which  the 
moral  difficulty  arises  is  that  of  a  man  who  is  known 
to  have  accumulated  his  wealth  by  unsocial  or  flagitious 
methods,  and  who,  in  bestowing  it,  wishes  the  grateful 
recognition  of  those  who  receive  it. 

The  real  question  which  emerged  from  all  this  haze  is 
simply  this :  What  is  the  right  relation  between  moral 
teachers  and  the  possessors  of  predatory  wealth  ?  It  is 
impossible  to  deny  the  existence  of  a  considerable  class 
of  persons  who  have  obtained  great  wealth  by  predatory 
methods,  by  evasion  and  defiance  of  law,  by  the  practice 
of  vast  extortions,  by  getting  unfair  and  generally  un- 
lawful advantages  over  their  neighbors,  by  secret  agree- 
ments, and  the  manipulation  of  railway  and  government 
officials ;  by  such  violations  of  law  as  have  been  brought 
to  light  in  thousands  of  indictments  in  the  rebate  cases ; 
by  the  use  of  trust  funds  for  private  gain ;  by  manifold 
arts  that  tend  to  corrupt  the  character  and  destroy  the 
foundations  of  the  social  order.  The  national  govern- 
ment has  been  expending  much  of  its  strength,  during 


PARTNERSHIP  WITH  PLUNDERERS    405 

the  past  three  years,  in  the  detection  and  punishment  of 
crimes  of  this  character.  And  it  is  a  notorious  fact  that 
some  of  those  who  have  gained  great  wealth  by  such 
methods  have  been  diligently  and  in  many  cases  success- 
fully seeking  to  establish  close  relations  between  them- 
selves and  the  moral  teachers  of  the  country.  The 
question  is  what  these  moral  teachers  ought  to  do  about 
it.  ^^^lat  attitude  should  they  maintain  toward  such 
men  as  those  whom  our  government  has,  for  the  last 
three  years,  been  persistently  endeavoring  to  convict 
and  punish?  Ought  they  to  go  into  partnership  with 
them  in  the  business  of  religion  or  of  education  or  of 
philanthropy? 

To  the  suggestion  of  partnership  those  thus  chal- 
lenged are  apt  to  demur.  "We  have  proposed  no  such 
thing  as  partnership,"  they  protest.  But  what  else  shall 
it  be  called  ?  If  you  persuade  a  man  to  invest  one  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  of  his  capital  in  your  business, 
is  he  not,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  a  partner  in  your 
business  ?  Will  he  not  be,  in  his  own  eyes,  and  in  yours, 
and  in  the  eyes  of  the  whole  community,  associated 
with  you  in  your  business?  And  can  the  moral  teachers 
of  the  community  afford  thus  to  associate  themselves 
with  men  who  are  setting  the  laws  at  defiance,  and 
trampling  on  all  the  principles  of  justice  and  humanity 
in  their  ruthless  pursuit  of  gain  ? 

It  would  seem  that  if  the  churches  and  the  colleges 
of  the  land  have  any  clear  calling,  it  is  that  of  making 
abhorrent  and  detestable,  in  the  sight  of  the  youth, 
the  conduct  of  men  who  are  amassing  great  wealth  by 
methods  which  tend  to  the  overthrow  of  free  govern- 


406  RECOLLECTIONS 

ment  and  the  destruction  of  the  social  order.  They  will 
not  fulfill  this  calHng  by  building  churches  or  endowing 
mission  boards  with  money  contributed  by  such  men, 
or  by  erecting  college  halls  that  bear  their  names.  No 
amount  of  money  that  such  givers  can  contribute  can 
compensate  for  the  lowering  of  ideals  and  the  blurring 
of  consciences  which  this  kind  of  partnership  involves. 
Is  it  really  very  wonderful  that  such  a  moral  cataclysm 
as  that  which  appeared  in  the  insurance  investigation 
should  have  taken  place  in  our  American  society? 

Such  were  the  convictions  which  led  to  the  protest 
against  the  acceptance  by  our  Mission  Board  of  Mr. 
Rockefeller's  gift.  The  question  was  debated,  at  the 
beginning,  as  I  have  said,  on  the  understanding  that 
it  was  a  voluntary  gift;  but  it  afterward  transpired 
that  such  was  not  its  character.  Mr.  Rockefeller  had 
not  thrust  his  offering  upon  the  Board,  and  he  naturally 
declined  to  have  the  case  so  represented ;  it  was  at  his 
demand  that  an  explicit  and  extended  statement  was 
finally  made,  showing  that  the  officers  of  the  Board  had 
been  engaged  for  more  than  two  years  in  soliciting  this 
gift.  This  exhibit  disclosed  some  lack  of  ingenuousness 
in  the  previous  conduct  of  the  discussion.  If  this  fact 
had  been  clearly  stated  at  the  outset,  the  attitude  of 
many  minds  toward  the  transaction  would  have  been 
different.  The  question  now  before  the  churches  was 
whether  this  poHcy  should  be  commended  and  contin- 
ued. In  answer  to  this  question  I  gave  early  notice  that 
a  resolution  would  be  offered,  at  the  annual  meeting 
of  the  Board  at  Seattle,  in  October,  to  this  effect: 
"Resolved,  that  the  officers  of  this  Board  should  neither 


PARTNERSHIP  WITH  PLUNDERERS    407 

invite  nor  solicit  donations  to  its  funds  from  persons 
whose  gains  have  been  made  by  methods  morally 
reprehensible  or  socially  injurious." 

At  the  meeting  in  Seattle  this  resolution,  and  the 
"  Statement  of  Principles  "  made  by  the  officers  of  the 
Board  in  defending  its  action,  were  submitted  together. 
The  address  which  I  made  in  support  of  my  resolution, 
upon  the  question,  "Shall  lU-Gotten  Gains  be  sought 
for  Christian  Purposes?"  is  published  in  the  volume 
entitled  "The  New  Idolatry."  The  debate  was  not  a 
protracted  one.  The  "Principles"  submitted  were  not, 
apparently,  such  as  the  corporate  members  present 
cared  to  defend.  Yet  they  were  not  ready  to  adopt  my 
resolution,  with  its  practical  reproof  of  the  conduct  of 
their  officers.  To  vote  it  down,  and  thus  officially  con- 
sent that  ill-gotten  gains  should  be  soUcited  by  their 
officers  was  more  than  they  thought  it  prudent  to  do, 
and  therefore  the  knot  was  cut  by  lajdng  the  resolution 
and  the  "Principles"  on  the  table  together.  The  issue 
was  dodged.  The  officers  of  the  Board  were  not  re- 
proved for  what  they  had  done,  and  they  were  not  au- 
thorized to  continue  their  practice.  So  far  as  the  action 
of  the  corporate  members  was  concerned,  it  was  a  drawn 
battle.  But  there  was  no  question  about  the  verdict  of 
the  people.  The  great  audience  that  listened  to  the  dis- 
cussion spoke  its  mind  most  emphatically.  The  news- 
papers of  the  region,  some  of  which  had  sneered  at  the 
protest  before  the  meeting,  were  united  and  enthusiastic 
in  their  testimony  that  it  was  a  righteous  protest  and 
ought  to  be  heeded. 

I  had  no  expectation,  when  I  went  to  Seattle,  that 


408  RECOLLECTIONS 

I  could  get  my  resolution  adopted;  I  knew  that  the 
majority  of  the  corporate  members  who  would  be  pre- 
sent were  committed  against  it,  and  the  last  words  of  my 
speech  were  these :  ''Some  of  you  have  been  kind  enough 
to  assure  me  that  I  am  in  a  very  insignificant  minority. 
That  may  be ;  I  do  not  know  about  that ;  I  leave  that  to 
be  decided  by  you.  It  will  not  be  the  first  time  that  I 
have  been  in  a  very  small  minority,  even  in  this  Board ; 
but  I  have  seen  such  small  minorities,  in  a  very  few 
years,  grow  to  oven\'helining  majorities.  'The  safe  ap- 
peal of  truth  to  time '  is  one  on  which  I  have  learned  to 
rest  with  hope,  and  I  therefore  commit  with  confidence 
what  I  have  said  to  you,  and  to  the  people  of  the  Con- 
gregational churches,  and  to  the  kindly  judgment  of  all 
honorable  men."  Within  three  months  after  the  meet- 
ing, the  officers  of  the  Board,  though  taking  no  pubHc 
action  in  the  matter,  were  ready  to  give  assurances  that 
the  spirit  of  my  resolution  would  govern  their  future 
conduct.  The  protest  was  justified  and  the  battle  was 
won. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  discussion  has 
cleared  the  air.  Even  the  man  in  the  street  is  able  to 
see  that  the  alliance  of  churches  and  colleges  with  public 
enemies  is  not  a  good  thing ;  that  one  man's  money  is 
decidedly  not  as  good  as  another  man's  —  when  the 
acceptance  of  the  money  involves  partnership  with  evil- 
doers or  condonation  of  nefarious  conduct.  Even  the 
politicians  are  able  to  see  the  point.  A  society  was 
formed  in  Cincinnati,  not  long  ago,  for  the  protection 
of  the  ballot ;  and  George  B.  Cox,  of  that  city,  sent  the 
managers  his  check  for  five  hundred  dollars.  They  sent 


PARTNERSHIP  WITH  PLUNDERERS  409 

it  back.  Why?  Was  not  George  Cox's  money  as  good 
as  any  other  man's  money?  The  treasurer  of  the  Na- 
tional RepubHcan  Committee,  in  the  campaign  of  1908, 
announced  that  contributions  from  corporations  would 
not  be  received,  and  that  those  which  had  been  sent 
in  would  be  returned.  Why?  Is  not  a  corporation's 
money  as  good  as  the  money  of  a  private  person  ?  Is 
there  any  justification  for  these  scruples?  Probably 
there  is.  Probably  there  are  compromising  relations 
here  that  had  better  be  avoided.  The  pohticians  are 
becoming  sensitive  about  such  matters.  I  have  no 
doubt  the  churches  and  the  colleges  will  be  more  so, 
one  of  these  days. 

The  response  of  the  people  to  this  protest  was  one  that 
touched  me  deeply.  Letters  from  all  parts  of  the  Union 
literally  poured  in  upon  me,  for  months.  One  could 
never  have  guessed  that  such  an  issue  would  stir  the 
people  so  profoundly.  Among  these  hundreds  of  stran- 
gers who  wrote  to  express  their  approval  were  men  and 
women  of  all  ranks  and  classes,  but  the  testimony  that 
was  most  grateful  came  from  those  outside  the  church, 
who  had  been  repelled  from  it  by  its  seeming  subser- 
viency to  Mammon,  and  who  were  glad  to  welcome  any 
signs  of  the  breaking  of  that  yoke.  I  could  not  reply 
to  all  those  friendly  letters,  but  I  have  kept  them  all ; 
and  I  trust  that  some  of  those  who  then  stretched 
forth  to  me  a  kind  hand  may  read  these  words  and  find 
in  them  some  sense  of  my  gratitude  for  their  words  of 
comfort  and  good  cheer. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

OCTOBER  SUNSHINE 

Ay,  thou  art  welcome,  heaven's  delicious  breath, 
When  woods  begin  to  wear  the  crimson  leaf, 
And  suns  grow  meek,  and  the  meek  suns  grow  brief, 

And  the  year  smiles  as  it  draws  near  its  death. 

Wind  of  the  sunny  south!   Oh,  still  delay 
In  the  gay  woods  and  in  the  golden  air, 
Like  to  a  good  old  age  released  from  care, 

Journeying,  in  long  serenity,  away. 

In  such  a  bright  late  quiet,  would  that  I 

Might  wear  out  life  like  thee,  mid  bowers  and  brooks, 
And,  dearer  yet,  the  sunshine  of  kind  looks, 

And  music  of  kind  voices  ever  nigh ; 

And  when  my  last  sand  twinkled  in  the  glass, 
Pass  silently  from  men,  as  thou  dost  pass. 

William  Cullen  Bryant. 

I  AM  writing  these  words  at  the  end  of  May,  in  the 
year  nineteen  hundred  and  nine.  The  record  of  the 
family  Bible  and  the  reflection  of  gray  hairs  in  the 
looking-glass  would  make  out  that  with  me  it  is  late 
October ;  but  the  tingle  in  my  blood  and  the  scenery  of 
the  garden  and  the  heart  insist  that  it  is  "the  high  tide 
of  the  year."  It  seems  a  good  time  to  gather  up  a  sheaf 
of  miscellaneous  memories  and  reflections  for  which  no 
place  has  been  found  in  the  discussions  of  larger  affairs 
on  preceding  pages. 

I  should  not  Uke  to  leave  on  any  mind  the  impression 
that  the  energies  of  my  life  have  been  wholly  or  mainly 
given  to  literature  or  politics  or  social  reform.   I  have 


OCTOBER  SUNSHINE  411 

been  —  but  for  the  four  years  of  journalistic  service  — 
a  Christian  pastor;  my  interests  have  been  centred  in 
the  churches  I  have  been  serving,  and  the  hfe  that  I 
have  shared  with  my  parishioners  and  my  neighbors 
has  been  the  Hfe  best  worth  Hving. 

I  have  often  been  asked  how  I  have  managed  to  do 
so  much  literary  work.  The  easy  answer  is  that  I  have 
done  very  little  work  of  this  kind  outside  of  my  pre- 
paration for  my  pulpit.  Of  the  thirty-one  volumes  of 
which  the  encyclopaedias  accuse  me,  all  but  six  have 
gone  through  my  pulpit,  and  are  printed  as  they  were 
preached,  with  almost  no  revision.  A  number  of  these 
volumes  are  courses  of  Sunday  evening  lectures,  origi- 
nally prepared  and  preached  with  no  thought  of  pub- 
lication. "Did  you  ever  hear  me  preach?"  asked 
Coleridge  of  Charles  Lamb.  "N-n-never  heard  you  do 
anything  else,"  answered  Charles.  My  friends  are  quite 
entitled  to  say  the  same  thing  about  me,  and  I  do  not 
wish  from  them  any  other  verdict.  Only  I  insist  that 
the  pulpit  in  these  days  has  a  wide  field  open  to  it,  and 
that  everything  which  helps  to  prepare  the  Kingdom 
for  which  we  pray  is  within  the  purview  of  the  preacher. 
Furthermore,  I  maintain  that  good  sermons  may  be  and 
ought  to  be  good  literature ;  that  the  free,  direct,  con- 
versational handling  of  a  theme  in  the  presence  of  an 
audience  makes  good  reading  in  a  book.  If  I  am  per- 
mitted to  judge  my  own  work,  I  should  say  that  the 
best  of  my  books,  as  literature,  is  the  book  of  sermons, 
—  "  WTiere  Does  the  Sky  Begin?"  My  Sunday  morning 
sermons  have  usually  been  devoted  to  the  themes  of 
personal  reUgion,  but  in  the  evenings  I  have  chosen  to 


412  RECOLLECTIONS 

deal  with  wider  interests,  always,  however,  keeping  the 
discussion  close  to  the  issues  of  life  and  character.  I 
have  steadil}'  declined  to  go  into  the  show  business  on 
Sunday  nights,  whether  with  music  or  with  pictures, 
holding  that  amusement  is  not  the  crying  need  of  any 
class  in  our  city  populations,  and  that  the  pulpit  ought 
to  maintain  its  dignity  as  a  teaching  function.  These 
Sunday  evening  sermons  and  lectures  have  cost  me, 
therefore,  a  great  deal ;  I  think  that  I  have  expended  on 
them  twice  as  much  labor  as  on  my  morning  sermons, 
though  I  have  not  meant  to  slight  these. 

Several  of  these  courses  of  Sunday  evening  discussions 
have  been  given  to  religious  themes,  —  the  two  books 
entitled,  "\Yho  Wrote  the  Bible?"  and  "Seven  Puzzling 
Bible  Books,"  the  two  volumes  entitled,  "Burning 
Questions,"  and  "How  Much  is  Left  of  the  Old  Doc- 
trines?" the  two  little  manuals,  "Being  a  Christian," 
and  "The  Christian  Way,"  and  a  number  of  smaller 
publications.  There  are  several  unpublished  series  of 
similar  character.  The  social  question  in  all  its  phases 
has  been  a  constant  theme,  the  effort  being  to  present 
the  Christian  solution  of  such  problems  as  they  arise. 
Biographical  studies  have  opened  many  productive 
fields ;  there  is  no  more  effective  or  convincing  presenta- 
tion of  saving  truth  than  that  which  is  given  in  the  life 
of  a  good  man  or  woman,  and  nothing  is  more  pro- 
foundly interesting  to  any  sort  of  audience.  I  remember 
being  invited  by  a  minister  in  a  neighboring  town  to 
give  a  lecture  to  his  congregation,  which  was  composed 
of  unliterary  people,  and  I  offered  him  one  that  I  had 
been  giving  in  the  colleges,  on  Thomas  Carlyle.  He  ob- 


OCTOBER  SUNSHINE  413 

jected,  on  the  ground  that  his  people  would  not  care  for 
it,  but  I  insisted ;  and  he  afteru^ard  owned  that  I  could 
have  given  them  nothing  that  would  have  held  their 
attention  more  successfully.  Ethical  themes  of  every 
variety,  questions  of  conduct,  problems  of  Ufe,  have  been 
considered ;  the  lessons  of  the  great  novels  and  the  great 
poems  have  been  studied.  One  course  dealt  with  "Some 
Saintly  Heretics,"  and  one  with  the  poets  as  preachers. 

To  poetry  as  the  expression  of  the  life  of  the  Spirit, 
I  have  devoted  much  attention  in  my  teaching.  For 
several  years  I  have  given,  in  our  chapel,  on  Friday 
afternoons  in  Lent,  devotional  readings  from  the  poets, 
—  readings  with  almost  no  comment ;  and  these  exer- 
cises have  come  to  be  regarded  with  much  favor.  From 
Milton  and  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  and  the  Brown- 
ings, from  Tennyson  and  Matthew  Arnold  and  Edvtin 
Arnold  and  Jean  Ingelow  and  Adelaide  Procter  and 
Christina  Rossetti,  from  Bryant  and  Longfellow  and 
Emerson  and  Wliittier  and  Lowell  and  Sidney  Lani6r 
and  Richard  Watson  Gilder  and  many  other  seers  and 
singers,  messages  have  come  to  us  that  opened  the  gates 
of  heaven  and  made  plainer  the  paths  that  lead  thither. 

It  will  be  fifty  years  next  January  since  I  began  my 
work  as  a  Christian  minister,  and  I  wish  to  bear  testi- 
mony that  I  am  not  yet  tired  of  my  work,  and  have  not 
begun  to  doubt  whether  it  is  worth  while.  Save  for  that 
brief  episode  in  journalism,  I  have  kept  steadily  at  it ; 
and  that  was  hardly  an  interval,  for  I  was  preach- 
ing nearly  every  Sunday,  and  for  almost  two  of  those 
years  I  had  much  of  the  care  of  a  parish.  I  have  been 
sometimes  tempted  by  college  work.   In  the  spring  of 


414  RECOLLECTIONS 

1886  the  presidency  of  Western  Reserve  University  was 
vacant,  and  a  friend  of  mine,  on  the  board  of  trustees, 
was  solicitous  that  I  should  consider  a  call  to  that  posi- 
tion. Other  members  of  the  board  were  also  interested, 
and  it  was  settled  that  a  delegation  would  visit  Colum- 
bus for  consultation.  Just  at  this  juncture  the  invitation 
came  to  speak  at  Cleveland,  at  that  joint  meeting  of 
employers  and  workingmen  to  which  I  have  referred 
in  a  previous  chapter.  ^Mien  I  told  my  friend  of  the 
invitation,  he  shook  his  head:  "You  had  better  not 
go,"  he  said.  "\Vhy  not?"  "Well,  I  would  rather  you 
would  not  raise  such  questions,  just  now."  "Just  now 
is  exactly  the  time  to  raise  them,"  I  answered.  "It  is 
better  that  everybody  should  know  just  now  where  I 
stand  on  this  issue."  So  I  went  to  Cleveland,  and  heard 
no  more  from  that  board  of  trustees. 

In  the  early  spring  of  1893  ex-President  Hayes,  who 
was  then  the  president  of  the  trustees  of  the  Ohio  State 
University,  had  several  interviews  with  me,  in  which  he 
informed  me  that  the  board  wished  to  elect  me  to  the 
presidency  of  that  institution,  but  desired  to  wait  until 
the  legislature  should  remove  the  limitation  upon  the 
amount  of  the  president's  salary.  In  June  of  that  year 
I  was  invited  to  make  the  Commencement  Address 
at  the  Illinois  State  University,  whose  presidency  was 
then  vacant ;  and,  shortly  thereafter,  was  surprised  by 
the  notification  that  I  had  been  elected  to  that  office. 
Such  an  offer  had  to  be  respectfully  considered,  and  I 
visited  Champaign  and  looked  over  the  field,  but  con- 
cluded that  I  would  rather  remain  in  Ohio.  During  this 
summer  the  anti-Catholic  eruption  broke  out,  and  I 


OCTOBER  SUNSHINE  415 

made  no  delay  in  freeing  my  mind  about  it.  The  next 
legislature,  as  I  have  explained,  was  dominated  by  this 
prescriptive  organization,  and  notice  was  promptly 
served  upon  the  university  trustees  that  they  could  get 
no  appropriations  without  the  guaranty  that  nobody 
in  Columbus  should  be  made  president  of  the  institution. 
The  appropriations  were  secured,  and  I  was  not  made 
president.  Free  speech,  it  is  clear,  is  sometimes  a  costly 
luxury  to  those  who  indulge  in  it ;  but  it  is  worth  all  it 
costs.  Such  martyrdom  as  this  is  not  worth  whimpering 
over.  I  should  have  been  a  caitiff  if  I  had  hesitated  to 
speak  my  mind  freely  on  either  of  these  occasions,  and 
any  promotion  which  silence  would  have  purchased 
would  have  been  degradation. 

Several  other  propositions  to  enter  upon  college  work 
came  later,  but  they  had  ceased  to  interest  me.  I  began 
to  prize  the  freedom  of  my  pulpit.  There  was  some 
misgiving  about  the  kind  of  work  which  would  be  re- 
quired of  a  college  president,  and  about  the  kind  of 
restraints  which  would  be  laid  upon  him.  This  misgiving 
has  never  arisen  to  the  height  of  apprehension  indicated 
by  the  remark  of  President  Andrew  D.  Wliite,  of  Cornell, 
to  my  friend.  Professor  Moses  Coit  Tyler:  "Moses,  if 
any  man  ever  offers  you  a  college  presidency,  shoot  him 
on  the  spot ! "  But  there  has  been  enough  of  it  to  make 
me,  on  the  whole,  rather  thankful  for  the  fortunes  that 
have  shut  me  into  the  calling  to  which  my  life  has  been 
given. 

I  do  not  beheve  that  there  is  any  place  of  influence 
in  the  world  in  which  a  man  can  be  as  free  as  in  the 
Christian  pulpit.    There  are  churches,  no  doubt,  in 


416  RECOLLECTIONS 

which  limitations  would  be  imposed  upon  the  preacher, 
if  the  preacher  would  submit  to  them,  and  there  are 
preachers  who  habitually  wear  the  halter  and  are  wait- 
ing to  be  told  what  they  must  not  say.  Unquestionably 
there  is  cowardice  and  subserviency  in  the  pulpit,  as 
everywhere  else.  But  there  need  not  be.  A  minister 
with  a  clear  sense  of  his  vocation,  and  with  a  fair  amount 
of  common  sense,  who  can  make  allowances  for  differ- 
ences of  opinion,  and  discuss  critical  issues  with  a  rea- 
sonable degree  of  moderation,  can  speak  his  mind  more 
freely  than  most  moral  teachers.  I  have  been  saying 
things,  with  no  sense  of  restraint,  during  the  last  fifty 
years,  that  I  should  not  have  been  so  likely  to  say  if  I 
had  been  a  journalist  or  a  college  professor.  I  have  not 
always  commanded  the  assent  of  all  my  auditors,  but 
they  have  recognized  my  right  to  speak,  and  have  never 
sought  to  muzzle  me.  I  doubt  if  any  other  kind  of  work, 
in  which  a  living  was  to  be  made,  would  have  given  me 
so  large  an  opportunity  as  my  churches  in  North  Adams 
and  Springfield  and  Columbus  have  given  me  to  speak 
my  deepest  thought. 

But  it  has  not  all  been  criticism  or  controversy.  How 
far  from  it !  The  great  themes  of  the  ideal  life  are,  after 
all,  the  supreme  interests.  The  insights,  the  aspirations, 
the  consolations,  the  convictions,  the  hopes,  the  pur- 
poses which  flow  into  our  lives  from  the  realms  about 
us  and  above  us  —  how  much  our  peace  and  our  strength 
depend  upon  them !  These  things  of  the  Spirit  are  the 
great  realities.  The  existence  of  that  world  in  which 
our  higher  nature  dwells  and  from  which  we  draw  our 
inspirations  is  not  a  matter  of  conjecture.    Herbert 


OCTOBER  SUNSHINE  417 

Spencer  himself,  the  great  agnostic,  declares  that  we  are 
more  sure  of  the  Unknown  ReaHty,  out  of  which  all 
physical  forces  and  laws  proceed,  than  we  are  of  our  own 
existence.  By  our  scientific  logic  we  cannot  define  it,  but 
we  cannot  think  without  assuming  it.  And  that  which 
our  scientific  logic  cannot  define  is  made  known  to 
us  in  our  religious  experience.  It  is  with  these  reaHties 
of  the  unseen  realm  that  our  faith  makes  us  acquainted. 
And  these,  after  all,  are  "the  fountain  hght  of  all  our 
day,  the  master  light  of  all  our  seeing."  It  is  in  the  light 
of  them  that  everything  else  gets  value  and  significance. 
They  are  the  only  certainties.  Everything  else  is  fleeting 
and  illusory.  Continents  subside  and  mountains  explode 
and  crumble,  but  no  moment  can  ever  come  when  truth 
will  not  be  better  than  falsehood,  and  fidelity  than 
treachery,  and  trust  than  suspicion.  How  much  better? 
Infinitely  better.  No  measurements  can  express  the 
difference.  Thus  we  know  ourselves  to  be  children  of 
the  Infinite ;  elements  enter  into  our  lives  which  lift  us 
out  of  the  realms  of  time  and  space,  and  reveal  to  us  our 
larger  parentage.  It  is  only  as  we  are  able  to  draw  into 
our  life  these  great  elements,  to  transfigure  our  human 
relationships  and  duties  with  the  light  that  never  was 
on  sea  or  land,  that  life  becomes  significant  and  precious. 
Nothing  can  save  our  social  morality  but  a  constant 
infusion  of  this  idealism.  A\Tiere  it  is  wanting,  trade 
becomes  piracy  and  politics  plunder,  the  walls  of  the 
home  collapse,  and  the  state  rests  upon  a  volcano. 

I  wonder  if  any  one  thinks  that  these  things  which 
the  eye  cannot  see  and  the  ear  cannot  hear  are  any  less 
essential  to  human  Ufe  to-day  than  they  were  in  a 


418  RECOLLECTIONS 

former  generation.  I  wonder  if  any  one  imagines  that 
any  scheme  of  social  reconstruction  can  be  de\'ised 
which  will  enable  us  to  dispense  with  faith  and  hope  and 
love,  with  the  things  that  we  think  of  when  we  pray. 

For  my  own  part,  I  have  no  such  expectation.  These 
things  are  much  more  real  to  me,  much  closer  to  my 
life,  than  they  were  fifty  years  ago.  It  never  before 
seemed  to  me  so  well  worth  while  to  try  to  make  men 
see  them.  Religion,  at  the  beginning,  was  largely  a 
matter  of  tradition ;  to-day  I  am  resting  in  what  I  have 
verified.  Of  some  things  I  am  much  less  sure  than  once 
I  was,  but  what  Jesus  has  taught  us  about  the  Father 
in  heaven  and  the  Brother  on  the  earth  looms  large,  I 
want  to  get  to  understand  it  and  to  do  it.  The  things 
that  men  have  said  about  him  concern  me  less  and  less ; 
the  things  that  he  himself  has  said  concern  me  more  and 
more.  A  correct  theory  of  his  person  is  of  much  less  con- 
sequence than  obedience  to  his  words.  Has  he  not  told 
us  so?  "AMiy  call  ye  me  Lord,  Lord,  and  do  not  the 
things  which  I  say?"  The  only  way  to  find  out  what 
he  is,  is  to  obey  his  commandments.  ''If  any  man  will 
do  his  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine."  Yet  there 
are  millions  who  are  deeply  exercised  over  metaphysi- 
cal theories  of  his  nature,  but  who  are  utterly  skeptical 
concerning  his  explicit  counsels  about  living  together. 

There  is  much  earnest  questioning  in  these  days 
respecting  the  alleged  decadence  of  the  church.  Such 
an  exhibit  as  that  which  Mr.  Ray  Stannard  Baker  has 
just  made  of  the  rehgious  conditions  in  New  York  city 
is  not  comforting.  Nor  is  this  state  of  things  wholly 
exceptional.  ^Miat  is  the  matter  with  the  church  ?  The 


OCTOBER  SUNSHINE  419 

matter  is  that  it  has  concentrated  its  energies  upon 
beHeving  things  about  Christ,  and  has  ceased  behev- 
ing  him.  It  has  forgotten  its  commission:  "Go  ye  and 
make  disciples  of  all  the  nations,  teaching  them  to  observe 
all  things  whatsoever  I  commanded  you."  If  the  church 
would  dare  to  teach  and  to  practice  the  things  which 
Jesus  Christ  has  commanded,  she  would  soon  regain  her 
lost  power. 

It  is  the  behef,  the  assurance,  that  the  church  must 
return  to  the  simpUcity  that  is  in  Christ,  must  begin  to 
take  his  teachings  seriously,  must  learn  what  he  meant 
by  seeking  first  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteous- 
ness, that  has  made  the  preaching  of  the  gospel  such 
an  intensely  interesting  business  to  me,  during  the  last 
quarter  of  a  century.  It  begins  to  be  evident  that  the 
church  is  envisaging  her  own  failure,  and  is  inquiring 
with  contrition  and  solicitude,  what  it  means.  I  cannot 
help  hoping  that  she  will  be  able  to  see,  before  long,  that 
the  way  of  Jesus  is  the  way  of  life  for  the  individual, 
for  the  church,  for  the  industrial  order,  for  the  com- 
monwealth, and  that  she  will  find  a  way  to  enforce  that 
truth  upon  the  thought  of  mankind. 

All  the  signs  indicate  that  modem  society  is  being 
forced  by  the  disastrous  failure  of  the  methods  of  strife 
to  entertain  the  possibility  of  cooperation  as  the  funda- 
mental social  law.  The  multiplication  of  armaments  has 
become  not  only  an  enormity,  but  a  howling  farce ;  it  is 
impossible  that  the  nations  should  go  on  making  fools  of 
themselves  after  this  fashion.  The  industrial  conflict  is 
no  whit  less  irrational.  And  the  terrible  collapses  in  big 
business  during  the  last  decade  have  reduced  to  ab- 


420  RECOLLECTIONS 

surdity  the  scheme  of  the  graspers.  Who  wants  to  climb 
to  their  bad  eminence  ?  If  there  are  still  many  who  do, 
there  is  certainly  an  increasing  number  of  those  who  feel 
that  such  success  is  a  dismal  failure.  And  the  conviction 
grows  that  the  Golden  Rule  is,  after  all,  the  only  work- 
able rule  of  life ;  that  we  must  learn  how  to  live  by  it. 
This  is  the  sign  of  promise.  Is  He  really  coming  to  his 
Kingdom?  One  would  like  to  live  fifty  years  longer  just 
to  see. 

I  wish  that  I  might  draw  the  attention  of  some  of  the 
young  men  who  will  live  through  this  period  of  fifty 
years,  and  who  are  cherishing  the  purpose  of  service, 
to  the  work  of  the  Christian  ministry.  I  am  far  enough 
from  thinking  that  the  church  is  perfect,  or  from  ima- 
gining that  all  the  work  of  the  Kingdom  is  done  by 
the  church.  But  the  church  has  been,  and  in  increasing 
measure  will  be,  the  vitalizing  and  inspiring  agency  in 
the  social  movement.  Unless  the  ideas  and  forces  which 
the  church  stands  for  are  at  the  heart  of  that  movement, 
it  will  come  to  naught ;  and  it  will  not  come  to  naught. 
There  is  no  place  in  which  a  man  can  get  nearer  to  the 
heart  of  that  movement  than  in  the  Christian  pulpit.  It 
is  sometimes  supposed  to  be  a  narrow  place,  but,  as  a 
rule,  it  is  as  wide  as  the  man  who  stands  in  it  chooses  to 
make  it.  And  I  know  no  other  position  in  which  a  man 
has  so  many  chances  to  serve  the  community ;  in  which 
he  is  brought  into  such  close  and  helpful  relations  with 
so  many  kinds  of  people.  The  field  of  the  church,  under 
the  right  kind  of  leadership,  is  as  wide  as  the  world,  and 
the  force  of  the  church  is  more  responsive  to-day  than 
ever  before  to  the  right  kind  of  leadership.  There  are, 


OCTOBER  SUNSHINE  421 

it  is  true,  too  many  churches  which  are  sponges  rather 
than  springs  of  influence,  —  which  devote  their  energies 
to  building  themselves  up  out  of  the  community  instead 
of  pouring  themselves  into  the  community  in  streams  of 
service ;  which  have  not  learned  that  it  is  as  true  of 
churches  as  of  men,  that  they  who  would  save  their  lives 
lose  them.  But  it  is  quite  possible  for  a  brave  and  warm- 
hearted leader  to  put  a  new  spirit  into  such  a  church  as 
this,  and  a  conversion  of  that  sort  makes  joy  among  the 
angels.  And  the  man  who  gets  the  confidence  and  affec- 
tion of  a  group  of  people  who  are  enlisted  in  such  work 
as  properly  belongs  to  a  church  of  Jesus  Christ ;  who 
can  live  among  them,  for  a  generation  or  two,  shar- 
ing their  fortunes,  giving  and  recei\ang  comfort  and 
inspiration  and  courage  and  hope,  leading  them  in  such 
enterprises  of  good  will  as  are  always  inviting  them, 
has  got  about  as  good  a  thing  as  any  man  can  pray 
for. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

LOOKING  BACKWARD   AND   FORWARD 

The  airs  of  heaven  blow  o'er  me ; 
A  glory  shines  before  me 
Of  what  mankind  shall  be,  — 
Pure,  generous,  brave,  and  free. 

Ring,  bells  in  unreared  steeples, 
The  joy  of  unborn  peoples! 
Sound,  trumpets  far  off  blown. 
Your  triumph  is  my  ownl 

Parcel  and  part  of  all, 
I  keep  the  festival, 
Fore-reach  the  good  to  be. 
And  share  the  victory. 

I  feel  the  earth  move  sunward, 
I  join  the  great  march  onward, 
And  take,  by  faith,  while  living, 
My  freehold  of  thanksgiving. 

John  GreerUeaf  Whittier. 

I  FIND  myself,  as  I  approach  the  close  of  this  record, 
meditating  on  the  words  of  the  old  prophet :  ''Go  thou 
thy  way  till  the  end  be :  for  thou  shalt  rest,  and  stand  in 
thy  lot  at  the  end  of  the  days."  I  am  not,  indeed,  dis- 
posed to  admit  that  my  work  is  all  done ;  these  Recollec- 
tions have  been  written  while  my  life  is  in  full  vigor, 
because  I  did  not  wish  them  to  reflect  the  judgments  of 
decrepitude.  A\Tien  a  man  is  seventy-three  years  old,  it  is 
natural  for  him  to  feel  that  the  time  has  come  to  take  in 
sail.  Yet  that  feeling  may  be  too  freely  indulged.  The 
Psahnist's  estimate  may  have  been  reasonable  for  his 


LOOKING  BACKWARD  AND  FORWARD    423 

time ;  but  since  that  day  the  average  term  of  human  life 
has  been  greatly  prolonged.  That  recent  impressive 
exhibit  of  the  work  done  by  the  master  minds  of  the  cen- 
turies after  the  seventieth  milestone  has  been  passed, 
is  full  of  encouragement.  I  beUeve  that  when  we  shall 
have  learned  how  to  Uve,  centenarians  will  be  dwelling 
on  every  street,  and  septuagenarians  will  be  counted 
as  hardly  past  their  prime.  I  am  not,  then,  concerning 
myself  greatly  about  the  future ;  I  only  hope  that  I 
may  be  able  to  stand  in  my  lot  until  the  end  of  the  days, 
working  as  long  as  I  can  help,  and  ready  to  step  aside 
as  soon  as  I  begin  to  be  in  the  way. 

There  is  some  interest,  however,  to  me  in  a  backward 
look  from  the  point  which  I  have  now  reached,  over  the 
years  whose  experiences  I  have  been  trying  to  trace.  It 
is  not  the  verdict  of  egotism  which  makes  them  fruitful 
and  memorable  years. 

Since  my  life  began,  the  entire  face  of  the  world  has 
been  changed.  Africa,  which,  seventy  years  ago,  was, 
but  for  a  fringe  along  the  Mediterranean  and  a  tassel  at 
the  southern  cape,  cloaked  in  densest  darkness,  has  been 
invaded  from  every  side  by  the  forces  of  civilization, 
and  now  promises  to  be,  within  the  present  century,  the 
scene  of  vast  industries  and  mighty  transformations; 
Asia  is  quaking  in  the  throes  of  great  overturnings ;  but 
it  is  the  map  of  Europe  on  which  the  most  marvelous 
changes  have  been  recorded.  The  boundaries  of  most  of 
the  states  have  been  moved  again  and  again  since  I 
began  to  study  geography,  and  the  entire  fabric  of  poUt- 
ical  society  has  been  reconstructed. 

In  England,  four  years  before  my  life  began,  the  Re- 


424  RECOLLECTIONS 

form  Bill  had  enfranchised  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
population,  but  a  vast  majority  of  the  people  were  still 
without  the  suffrage;  in  successive  reform  measures  I 
have  seen  this  right  extended  to  one  section  after  an- 
other of  the  English  people,  until  now  the  suffrage  is 
practically  universal,  and  England  is  about  as  near  to 
being  a  true  democracy  as  any  country  in  the  world, 
France,  in  1836,  was  under  the  milk-and-water  monar- 
chy of  Louis  Phihppe ;  I  remember  well  the  downfall  of 
that  Orleans  dynasty,  in  1848,  and  the  blare  of  trumpets 
that  proclaimed  the  flamboyant  and  short-lived  Second 
Republic,  whose  house  of  cards  was  so  soon  toppled  over 
by  the  cynical  usurper  who  vaulted  into  the  saddle  and 
rode  ruthlessly  over  the  liberties  of  Europe  for  twenty 
years.  The  bursting  of  the  bubble  of  the  Second  Empire 
and  the  rise  and  steady  progress  of  the  Third  French 
Republic,  which  now  bids  fair  to  give  France  enduring 
peace  with  freedom,  are  among  the  great  historic  events 
of  my  recollection. 

In  the  meantime  the  disjecta  membra  of  the  German 
states  have  been  erected  into  a  mighty  empire ;  Italy,  so 
long  a  group  of  quarreling  principalities,  has  become  a 
people  with  a  national  consciousness ;  Spain  has  dwin- 
dled to  a  third-class  power ;  Bulgaria  has  come  to  her 
own ;  Russia,  the  last  stronghold  of  absolutism,  stands 
dazed  and  helpless  in  the  presence  of  that  populace  on 
whose  necks  her  autocracy  has  so  long  been  standing; 
and  the  Sick  Man  of  the  Bosphorus  is  taking  the  medi- 
cine which  promises  to  save  his  life. 

What  a  gallery  of  portraits  might  be  drawn,  if  one  had 
time  and  skill,  of  the  men  who  have  been  marching 


LOOKING  BACKWARD  AND  FORWARD    425 

across  the  map  of  Europe  during  the  last  seventy  years, 
—  of  Peel  and  O'Connell  and  Cobden  and  Bright  and 
Disraeli  and  Gladstone ;  of  Louis  Blanc  and  Thiers  and 
Gambetta;  of  Garibaldi  and  Mazzini  and  Cavour;  of 
Castelar  and  Prim  and  Serrano ;  of  Bismarck  and  Von 
Moltke;  of  Menshikoff  and  Gortchakoff, — not  to  speak 
of  those  poets  and  painters  and  sculptors  and  musicians 
who  have  lifted  into  the  Hght  the  real  and  enduring 
things,  —  the  things  of  the  Spirit. 

The  changes  in  the  world  of  thought  which  have  taken 
place  during  the  past  seven  decades  have  been  more 
radical  and  more  momentous  than  any  which  have  taken 
place  in  the  industrial  or  the  poUtical  realm.  What  goes 
on  in  the  outer  world,  in  truth,  only  registers  the  move- 
ments of  mind.  The  astounding  progress  in  the  practical 
arts  is  the  result  of  scientific  discovery,  and  science 
belongs  to  the  world  of  thought,  not  to  the  world  of 
things.  CiviUzation  is  a  spiritual,  not  a  physical  fact. 

It  was  the  emancipation  given  to  the  Ufe  of  the  Spirit 
by  the  great  masters  of  modem  philosophy,  Kant  and 
Fichte  and  Hegel,  that  set  men  to  thinking  about  the 
life  of  mankind,  that  led  to  explorations  into  old  records 
of  humanity's  earher  experiences,  that  developed  the 
historical  sense,  that  showed  the  present  to  be  the  child 
of  the  past,  that  prepared  the  way  for  that  doctrine  of 
development  which  was  to  revolutionize  human  thought. 

Lyell's  geological  researches,  which  showed  that  the 
earth's  crust  had  been  slowly  modified  by  age-long  pro- 
cesses, first  brought  home  to  the  popular  mind  the  sig- 
nificance of  this  new  theory.  It  would  be  difficult  for  the 
younger  generation  to  understand  with  what  amaze- 


426  RECOLLECTIONS 

ment,  yea,  what  indignation,  this  new  teaching  was  re- 
ceived. The  outcry  against  the  Higher  Criticism  has 
been  feeble  compared  with  the  denunciations  hurled 
against  the  geologists  from  pulpit  and  sanctum  and  plat- 
form. Soon,  however,  it  began  to  be  evident  to  all  who 
could  think,  that  the  records  plainly  written  on  the 
rocks  by  the  Creator  Himself  can  be  no  less  veracious 
than  those  written  upon  parchment  by  human  hands; 
that  science  gives  us  the  word  of  God  no  less  authori- 
tatively than  revelation ;  that  the  infidelity  which  dis- 
putes the  truth  that  God  has  revealed  in  his  works  is 
quite  as  heinous  as  that  which  questions  the  truth  of  a 
statement  in  a  holy  book. 

Thus,  little  by  Httle,  the  truth  began  to  be  dimly  ap- 
prehended —  it  is  not  yet,  by  any  means,  fully  under- 
stood— that  God  is  in  his  world  to-day  as  really  as  He 
ever  was ;  that  the  work  of  creation  is  not  yet  finished, 
and  never  will  be.  The  work  of  creation  is  a  continuous 
process,  and  so  is  the  work  of  revelation.  All  that  we 
call  Nature  is  but  the  constant  manifestation  of  the  di- 
vine power;  and  the  Spirit  in  whose  image  our  spirits 
are  fashioned,  and  with  whom  we  are  made  for  fellow- 
ship, is  here,  all  the  while,  as  close  to  us  as  He  ever  was 
to  any  men  in  any  age ;  as  ready  to  give  inspiration  and 
wisdom  to  us  as  He  has  ever  been  to  any  of  his  children. 
This  is  the  truth  which  is  slowly  breaking  through  the 
mists  of  tradition,  and  is  beginning  to  Hght  up  the  world 
with  a  new  sense  of  the  nearness  and  the  reality  of  the 
living  God. 

Good  men  are  sometimes  anxious  lest  we  should  lose 
our  religion.  It  looks  as  though  we  were  going  to  lose  the 


LOOKING  BACKWARD  AND  FORWARD     427 

husk  of  it  and  find  the  kernel ;  to  lose  the  chrysalis  and 
win  the  butterfly.  The  trouble  has  been  that  our  labori- 
ous thinking  has  put  our  God  far  away  from  us.  "He 
was  working  here  once,"  we  have  said,  "in  the  morning 
of  the  Creation,  but  He  finished  his  work  then  and  went 
away ;  since  then  He  has  only  appeared  now  and  then  to 
work  a  miracle ;  all  we  know  of  Him  in  Nature  is  through 
the  report  that  comes  to  us  from  those  far-off  times.  He 
was  speaking  here,  once,  in  the  days  of  prophets  and 
apostles,  but  He  finished  what  He  had  to  say  and  sealed 
the  book ;  since  then  there  is  no  open  vision,  no  authori- 
tative word." 

All  this  puts  Him  far  away.  Our  religion,  whatever 
we  call  it,  becomes  mainly  a  tradition.  We  are  climbing 
to  heaven  by  ladders  of  testimony  to  bring  G^d  down, 
we  are  descending  into  the  abyss  by  our  chains  of  logic 
to  draw  Him  forth,  when  in  very  truth  He  is  near  us,  in 
the  very  breath  of  our  life,  in  the  thrill  of  our  nerves,  in 
the  pulsations  of  our  hearts,  in  the  movements  of  our 
minds,  living  and  working  in  us  and  manifesting  Himself 
in  every  natural  force,  in  every  law  of  life.  This  is  the 
truth  which  the  world  is  beginning  to  understand,  the 
truth  of  the  immanent  God ;  and  when  it  gets  to  be  a 
reality  we  shaU  not  be  afraid  of  losing  our  rehgion. 

We  hear  people,  in  these  days,  denying  the  supernat- 
ural. It  is  a  little  as  if  the  planets  should  proclaim  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  space,  or  as  if  the  rivers  should 
declare  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  water.  We  cannot 
lay  our  hand  on  life  anyw^here  without  feeling  the  thrill 
of  that  Something  More  which  underlies  all  law  and 
eludes  all  physical  analysis. 


428  RECOLLECTIONS 

It  is  toward  this  larger  faith  that  the  movements  of 
thought  have  been  leading  on  through  all  the  years  of 
my  pilgrimage.  It  is  a  far  cry  from  those  old  legal  and 
mechanical  conceptions  of  the  relation  of  God  to  the 
world  which  prevailed  in  my  youth,  to  this  vital  faith  in 
a  living  God  of  which  I  have  been  trjdng  to  tell,  and  it 
must  not  be  supposed  that  the  whole  church  has  arrived 
at  these  convictions.  I  have  shown  where  the  head  of 
the  column  is  marching ;  the  rest  of  it  is  moving  along. 

These  changes  in  the  underlying  philosophy  of  rehgion 
are  not  so  obvious  to  the  multitude,  but  the  changes  in 
the  popular  teaching  of  the  church  are  evident  to  all. 
The  message  which  is  spoken  to-day  fom  the  most  or- 
thodox pulpits  is  a  very  different  message  from  that  to 
which  I  was  accustomed  to  listen  in  my  boyhood.  The 
motive  of  fear,  of  terror,  was  then  the  leading  motive; 
this  motive  is  not  employed  now  as  it  was  then.  It  is  not 
a  moral  motive.  It  does  not  appeal  to  human  reason,  or 
human  freedom,  or  human  affection ;  it  seeks  to  over- 
power the  human  will.  We  have  found  a  more  excellent 
way.  Mr.  Moody  was  not  an  advanced  thinker,  but  his 
appeal  had  little  to  do  with  the  old  terrorism ;  love  was 
the  motive  on  which  he  reUed :  "  by  the  cords  of  a  man  " 
he  drew  men  to  God. 

Another  change  of  not  less  significance  is  that  by 
which  the  emphasis  is  placed  more  and  more  upon  the 
altruistic  motive.  It  begins  to  be  evident  that  that  is 
the  strongest  motive.  AVhen  I  was  a  boy,  the  main  rea- 
son urged  for  being  a  Christian  was  a  selfish  reason.  It 
was  insurance  against  loss ;  it  was  the  personal  gain,  the 
personal  happiness,  the  future  blessedness  of  which  it 


LOOKING  BACKWARD  AND  FORW.^D    429 

put  you  in  possession,  that  were  constantly  kept  before 
your  mind.  That  motive  has  been  steadily  retreating 
into  the  background ;  the  motive  of  unselfish  service  has 
been  increasingly  emphasized.  Because  the  Christian  Ufe 
is  the  noblest  life ;  because  it  is  more  blessed  to  give  than 
to  receive,  and  better  to  minister  than  to  be  ministered 
unto ;  because  the  good  of  life  is  not  found  by  separating 
yourself  from  your  fellows,  but  by  identifying  yourself 
with  them,  —  therefore  let  us  be  Christians.  This  is  what 
it  means  to  follow  Christ  to-day,  as  the  wisest  preachers 
explain  it ;  and  this  is  an  appeal  which,  when  we  learn 
how  to  use  it,  will  have  convincing  power. 

I  am  fain  to  believe  that  the  time  is  drawing  near 
when  the  Christian  church  will  be  able  to  discern  and 
declare  the  simple  truth  that  ReUgion  is  nothing  but 
Friendship ;  friendship  with  God  and  with  men.  I  have 
been  thinking  much  about  it  in  these  last  days,  and  I 
cannot  make  it  mean  anything  else ;  so  far  as  I  can  see, 
this  is  all  there  is  to  it.  ReUgion  is  friendship  —  friend- 
ship first  with  the  great  Companion,  of  whom  Jesus  told 
us,  who  is  always  nearer  to  us  than  we  are  to  ourselves, 
and  whose  inspiration  and  help  is  the  greatest  fact  of 
human  experience.  To  be  in  harmony  with  his  purposes, 
to  be  open  to  his  suggestions,  to  be  in  conscious  fellow- 
ship with  Him,  —  this  is  reUgion  on  its  Godward  side. 

Then,  turning  manward,  friendship  sums  it  all  up.  To 
be  friends  with  everybody ;  to  fill  every  human  relation 
with  the  spirit  of  friendship ;  is  there  anything  more  than 
this  that  the  wisest  and  best  of  men  can  hope  to  do  ? 

If  the  church  could  accept  this  truth  —  Religion  is 
Friendship  —  and  build  its  own  life  upon  it,  and  make  it 


430  RECOLLECTIONS 

central  and  organic  in  all  its  teaching,  should  we  not  see 
a  great  revival  of  religion  ? 

I  have  thus,  in  a  few  words,  tried  to  trace  the  path 
of  rehgious  progress  through  the  seven  decades  of  my 
recollections ;  it  would  be  an  equal  pleasure  to  follow 
the  growth  of  philanthropic  sentiment  and  activity,  the 
marvelous  development  of  the  aesthetic  side  of  life,  the 
progress  of  educational  ideals  and  methods,  and  many 
others  of  the  great  human  interests.  For  that  there  is 
now  no  room.  But  I  should  like  to  bear  witness  that  the 
retrospect,  from  this  point,  confirms  the  remembered 
verdict  of  the  years  as  they  have  been  going  by,  that  it 
is  a  good  thing  to  live.  There  may  be  better  worlds,  but 
I  should  hke  to  be  guaranteed  another  seventy  years  in 
just  such  a  world  as  this.  There  would  be  suffering  and 
sorrow,  stmggle  and  privation,  hard  knocks  and  tough 
luck ;  they  have  not  missed  me,  and  if  I  had  to  go  over 
the  track  again,  I  would  not  ask  to  be  protected  from 
them ;  I  know  that  all  this  has  been  good  for  me.  It  is 
good  for  any  man  who  will  hold  up  his  head  and  keep 
a  trusting  heart. 

Of  this  I  am  sure:  if  it  was  ever  worth  while  to  live,  it 
is  worth  while  to  live  to-day.  No  better  day  than  this 
day  has  ever  dawned  on  this  continent.  Sometimes  it 
may  have  seemed  as  if  the  foundations  were  crumbling 
under  our  feet,  —  the  exposures  of  perfidy  and  dishonor 
have  been  so  shocking.  But  the  thing  to  fix  the  thought 
upon  is  the  mighty  revulsion  of  public  sentiment  against 
this  rottenness  and  rascality.  It  is  the  sound  and  clear 
moral  judgment  of  the  nation  which  makes  all  this  ini- 
quity seem  so  horrible.   The  blackness  of  the  shadow 


LOOKING  BACKWARD  AND  FOmVARD    431 

proves  the  intensity  of  the  light.  The  annals  of  the  fu- 
ture will  mark  these  days  as  an  epoch  in  the  ethical 
awakening  of  the  American  people. 

We  turn  our  faces  to  the  future  with  good  hope  in  our 
hearts.  There  are  great  industrial  problems  before  us, 
but  we  shall  work  them  out ;  there  are  battles  to  fight, 
but  we  shall  \\'in  them.  With  all  those  who  believe  in 
justice  and  the  square  deal,  in  kindness  and  good  will,  in 
a  free  field  and  a  fair  chance  for  every  man,  the  stars  in 
their  courses  are  fighting,  and  their  \ictory  is  sure. 


BOOKS   BY  WASHINGTON  GLADDEN 

Plain  Thoughts  on  the  Art  of  Living.     Ticknor  &  Fields, 

1868;  Porter  &  Goates. 
From  the  Hub  to  the  Hudson.     New  England  News  Co., 

1869. 
Workingmen  and  their  Employers.     Lockwood,  Brooks 

&  Co.,  1876;  Funk  &  Wagnalls,  1885. 
Being  a  Christian:  What  it  Means  and  How  to  Begin. 

Congregational  Publishing  Society,  1876. 
The  Christian  Way.     Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.,  1877. 
The  Lord's  Prayer.     Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1880. 
The  Christian   League  of    Connecticut.     The  Century 

Company,  1883. 
Things  New  and  Old.     A.  H.  Smythe,  1884. 
The  Young  Men  and  the  Churches.  Congregational  Pub- 
lishing Society,  1885. 
Applied  Christianity.     Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1887. 
Parish  Problems  (edited  and  compiled).     The  Century 

Company,  1888. 
Burning  Questions.     James  Clarke  &  Co.,  London,  1889; 

The  Century  Company. 
Santa  Claus  on  a  Lark.     The  Century  Company,  1890. 
Who  Wrote  the  Bible  ?     Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1891. 
Tools  and  the  Man:  Property  and  Industry  under  the 

Christian  Law.     Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1893. 
The  Cosmopolis  City  Club.     The  Century  Company,  1893. 
The  Church  and  the  Kingdom.     F.  H.  Revell  &  Co. .  1894. 
RuUng  Ideas  of  the  Present  Age.     Houghton,  Mifflin  & 

Co.,  1895. 


434    BOOKS  BY  WASHINGTON  GLADDEN 

Seven  Puzzling  Bible  Books.     Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co., 

1897. 
Social  Facts  and  Forces.     G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  1897. 
Art  and  Morality.     W.  F.  Ketchum,  1897. 
The  Christian  Pastor.     Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  1898. 
How  Much  is  Left  of  the  Old  Doctrines  ?     Houghton, 

Mifflin  &  Co.,  1899. 
Straight  Shots  at  Young  Men.     T.  Y.  Crowell,  1900. 
Social  Salvation.     Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1901. 
The  Practice  of  Immortality.     The  Pilgrim  Press,  1901. 
Witnesses  of  the  Light.     Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1903. 
Where  Does  the  Sky  Begin  ?     Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co., 

1904. 
Christianity  and  Socialism.     Methodist  Pubhshing  House, 

1905. 
The  New  Idolatry.     Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  1905. 
The  Church  and  Modern  Life.     Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co., 

1908. 
Recollections.     Houghton  Mifflin  Company,  1909. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abolitionism,  47. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  210. 

Advertisements,  disguised,  233. 

Alden,  Henry  M.,  77,  184. 

AUon,  Reverend  Henry,  355. 

AUston,  Washington,  353. 

Amending  the  Ohio  Constitution, 
317,  318. 

American  Board  of  Missions, 
and  the  second  probation 
question,  289;  the  question  of 
gifts  from  plunderers,  401; 
is  it  partnership?  405;  meeting 
at  Seattle,  407. 

American  social  life,  in  1836- 
44,  12  ff. 

Ames,  Mary  Clemmer,  191. 

Amusements,  controversy  about, 
168-171. 

Anderson,  Major  Robert,  109. 

Andrew,  Governor  John  A.,  179. 

Andrews,  Horace  Lee,  29,  30. 

Anthracite  strike,  305. 

Antietam,  battle  of,  128. 

Anti-Slavery  reform,  62. 

"A.  P.  A.,"  359,  365,  415. 

"  Applied  Christianity,"  297. 

Arkansas,  in  1837,  13. 

Arthur,  President  Chester  A., 
280. 

"  Atlantic  Monthly,"  78. 

Atonement,  moral  theory  of, 
266. 

"  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast-Ta- 
ble," 78. 


Babcock,  General  O.  E.,  220. 

Bacon,  Reverend  Leonard  Wool- 
sey,  190. 

Baptism  as  a  subject  of  contro- 
versy, 57. 

Bartlett,  Reverend  William  Al- 
vin,  89,  98. 

Bascom,  Professor  John,  74. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  58,  63, 
89 ;  Thanksgiving  sermon, 
1860,99-102;  199,  214. 

Beecher,  Thomas  K.,  86. 

"Being  a  Christian,"  38,  257, 
412. 

Belknap,  General  W.  W.,  220. 

Bermuda  Hundred,  139. 

Biblical  revision  and  criticism, 
259  S. 

Biography  in  the  pulpit,  412. 

Blaine,  J.  G.,  316,  378. 

Blair,  Governor  Austin,  210. 

Bonner,  Robert,  123. 

Bowen,  Henry  C,  182. 

Bowles,  Samuel,  82,  240-248. 

Boys  in  politics,  51. 

Bradford,  Reverend  Amory  H., 
400. 

Briggs,  Charles  F.,  186. 

Bristol,  R.  I.,  3. 

Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  89-91,  183, 
214. 

Brooks,  Bishop  Phillips,  325. 

Browning,  Robert,  316. 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  328,  410. 

Buchanan's  administration,  91. 


438 


INDEX 


Buckley,   Reverend   James  M., 

215. 
Bull  Run,  the  first  battle  of,  117. 
Burchard,    Reverend    Jedediah, 

56. 
"Burning  Questions,"  323,  412. 
Burnside,  General  A.  E.,  124. 
Bushnell,  Reverend  Horace,  119, 

164-168. 
Butler,  General  B.  F.,  220. 

Cairnes,  John  Eliot,  256. 

"Century  Magazine,"  174,  274. 

Chadbourne,  Professor  Paul  A., 
73. 

Chancellors ville,  battle  of,  129. 

Chattanooga,  battle  of,  136. 

Cheever,  Reverend  George  B.,  63. 

Chicago,  13. 

Chicago  convention,  91. 

Chickamauga,  battle  of,  136. 

Chinese  in  North  Adams,  171- 
173. 

Christian  Commission,  141,  142. 

"Christian  League  of  Connecti- 
cut," 274. 

Christian  rule  of  life,  299. 

"Christian  Way,  The,"  412. 

"  Christian  World,  The,"  of  Lon- 
don, 323,  357. 

"Christianity  and  Socialism," 
324. 

Church  life  at  the  middle  of  the 
19th  century,  57. 

Church  services  in  Owego,  33,34. 

Church  work  in  city  and  coun- 
try, 161,  162. 

City,  the  problem  of  the,  90. 

City  Club  of  New  York,  330. 

City  Point,  Va.,  139. 

Civic  Federation,  306,  330. 

Civil  Service  Reform,  rising  de- 
mand for,  195;  Grant's  atti- 


tude toward,  195;    first    com- 
mission,   196;   Curtis   resigns, 

219. 
Classical  studies,  64. 
Clay  and  the  tariff,  22. 
Cleveland,  President  Grover,  316, 

378. 
Coal-miners,  strike  of,  29  ff. 
Coan,  Titus  Munson,  188. 
Cohoon,  Jennie  O.,  98. 
Cold  Harbor,  battle  of,  136. 
Colfax,  Schuyler,  189,  214. 
Columbian  Exposition,  359. 
Columbus,  Ohio,  283,  284  ff,  286. 
"  Come-outers,  and  Stay-inners," 

271. 
Committee    of    Seventy  on   the 

Tweed  ring,  206. 
Compromise,  the  Clay,  31. 
Compromise,  Missouri,  48,  54. 
Conferences   of    employers   and 

employees,  304. 
Congregational     Churches,    the, 

398  ff. 
"  Congregational        Quarterly," 

266. 
Connecticut   Valley   Theological 

Club,  272. 
Connolly,  Richard  B.,  197,  200, 

207. 
Cooley,    Professor    Charles    H., 

392. 
Cornell  University,  324. 
Corporations,  the  first,  14. 
Corporations  and  legislation,  219. 
"Cosmopolis  City  Club,"  329. 
Cox,  General  J.  D.,  113,  194,  195, 

210. 
Creation,  continuous,  426. 
Credit  Mobilier,  217. 
Creed  of  1883,  287  ff. 
Crosby,  Reverend  Howard,  215. 
Curtis,  George  William,  121,  196. 


INDEX 


439 


Custom  House  scandals,  220. 
Cuyler,  Reverend  T.  L.,  89. 

Daniels,  Ebenezer,  23. 

Davis,  Noah,  210. 

Democracy    in    New    England, 

159-161. 
Dickinson,  Miss  Anna  E.,  121. 
Discipline  by  defamation,  268. 
Disguised  advertisements,  233. 
Dodge,  William  E.,  199. 
Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  48. 
Draft  riots  in  New  York,  131- 

135. 
Drew  Theological  Seminary,  324. 

Eggleston,  Edward,  182,  184. 
Emerson,    Ralph    Waldo,    121, 

122,  232,  366. 
England,  visits  to,  353-358;  in 

the  19th  century,  425. 
Erie  Canal  in  1844,  21. 
Eternal  punishment  as  a  motive, 

58. 
Evarts,  William  M.,  199. 

Farrar,  Archdeacon  F.  W.,  354. 

Federal  plan  of  city  government, 
334. 

Fish,  Hamilton,  194. 

Foss,  Bishop  Cyrus  D.,  215. 

Foundations  of  belief,  322. 

France  in  the  19th  century, 
424. 

Fraudulent  politics,  220. 

Fredericksburg,  battle  of,  129. 

Free  Soil  party,  54. 

Freraantle,  Reverend  W.  H.,  357. 

Fremont,  John  C,  66. 

Friendship,  the  essence  of  reli- 
gion, 429. 

Fugitive  Slave  Law,  debate  on, 
32;  45,  46. 


"Gail  Hamilton,"  191. 

Garfield,  President  James  A.,  73, 
76,  113 ;  election  of,  278;  assas- 
sination of,  279. 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  191. 

Gavazzi,  Father,  279. 

Geological  discoveries,  425. 

Germany  in  the  19th  century, 
424. 

Gettysburg,  battle  of,  130. 

Gilder,  Richard  Watson,  118, 136, 
184. 

Gladden,  Amanda  Daniels,  7,  12. 

Gladden,  Solomon,  birth  and 
education,  3;  removes  to  New 
York  and  Pennsylvania,  4; 
letters,  4-6;  religious  life,  10; 
death,  11 ;  souvenirs  in  South- 
ampton, 18. 

Gladden,  Washington,  birth,  8; 
early  education,  9;  removal  to 
Owego,  12;  journey  to  Massa- 
chusetts, 20;  life  on  the  farm, 
23  fif;  country  school,  27  ff; 
early  religious  life,  32  ff;  in 
the  printing-office,  40  ff;  in 
practical  politics,  51 ;  begins 
preparation  for  college,  57; 
enters  Williams  College,  67; 
is  graduated,  84;  begins  teach- 
ing in  Owego,  85;  licensed  to 
pieach,  86;  service  in  Le 
Raysville,  Pa.,  88;  call  to 
Brooklyn,  89;  ordination,  97; 
removal  to  Morrisania,  115; 
hospital  work  with  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac,  137  ff;  call  to 
North  Adams,  Mass.,  158; 
installation  there,  166-168; 
on  the  staff  of  the  New  York 
"Independent,"  187  ff.;  re- 
moval to  Springfield,  Mass., 
239;    edits    "Sunday    After- 


440 


INDEX 


noon,"  272;  call  to  Columbus, 
Ohio,  283;  service  at  Harvard 
University,  324;  in  the  city 
council,  336;  Moderator  of 
Congregational  Council,  400. 

Gladding,  Azariah,  2. 

Gladstone,  William  E.,  354. 

"God in  Christ,"  Bushnell's,  119. 

Good  Templars,  50. 

Good  will,  the  social  law,  310  ff. 

Grant,  General  Ulysses  S.,  131, 
136,  142,  143,  151,  177,  193, 
194,  210,  214,  216. 

Greeley,  Horace,  125,  126,  210- 
213. 

Green,  Andrew  H.,  207. 

Guiteau,  Charles  J.,  279. 

Hall,  A.  Oakey,  Mayor  of  New 

York,  197. 
Hampton  Institute,  373. 
Harper,  Fletcher,  200. 
"  Harper's  Weekly,"  200. 
Harrison's  Landing,  Va.,  138. 
Harte,  F.  Bret,  191. 
Hastings,  Reverend  Thomas  S., 

215. 
Havemeyer,  William  F.,  199. 
Haven,  Reverend  Gilbert,  189. 
Hay,  John,  385,  387. 
Hayes,  President  Rutherford  B., 

276,  277;  281,  414. 
Hayes-Tilden  contest,  275,  276. 
"Herald,"  New  York,  68,   110, 

111. 
Higher  criticism,  318. 
Hitchcock,  Secretary  E.  A.,  385. 
Hitchcock,     Professor     Roswell 

D.,  118. 
Hoadley,  Governor  George,  210. 
Hoar,  Ebenezer  Rockwood,  194. 
Holland,  Josiah  Gilbert,  82,  174, 

240,  274. 


Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  67. 
Hooker,  General  Joseph,  124. 
Hoosac  Tunnel,  174. 
Hopkins,        Professor       Albert, 

73. 
Hopkins,  President  Mark,  71,  72, 

86,  167,  265. 
"How  Much  is  Left  of  the  Old 

Doctrines?"  412. 
Howard  University,  324. 
Howells,  William  D.,  44. 
Hughes,  Archbishop  John,  112. 
Hunt,  Helen,  191. 

Illinois  State  University,  414. 

Immanence  of  God,  427. 

Impeachment  of  Andrew  John- 
son, 180. 

"Independent."  New  York,  63, 
163,  182,  192. 

Indian  Orchard  Council,  262  S. 

Industrial  revolution,  294. 

Industrial  society,  its  founda- 
tion, 299. 

International  Council  at  London, 
357. 

Invasion  of  Pennsylvania,   130. 

Iowa,  13. 

Iowa  College,  324. 

"Is  it  Peace  or  War?"  301. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  14. 
Jerusalem  Chamber,  355. 
Johnson,  Andrew,  150,  154,  176, 

180. 
Jones,  George,  editor  New  York 

"  Times,"  200-202. 

Kansas,  50,  65. 
Kingsley,  Charles,  176. 
Knapp,  Reverend  Jacob,  59. 
Know-Nothings,  52. 
Know-Somethings,  52. 


INDEX 


441 


Laissez  faire,  as  a  social  theory, 
295,  313. 

Lanier,  Sidney,  258. 

Le  Raysville,  Pa.,  88. 

Leavitt,  Reverend  Joshua,  128, 
185. 

Lee,  General  Robert  E.,  129; 
surrender  of,  145;  177. 

Lenten  services,  413. 

Lewisburg,  Pa.,  10,  11. 

Liberal  Republican  movement, 
210. 

Liberty  party,  birth  of,  22. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  debate  ■with 
Douglas,  90;  nomination  to 
the  presidency,  91 ;  election, 
94;  departure  for  Washington, 
106;  passes  down  Broadway, 
New  York,  107;  first  inaugural 
address,  108;  defense  of  Fort 
Sumter,  109;  first  call  for 
troops,  109;  advocates  com- 
pensated emancipation,  124; 
answers  Greeley's  "Prayer  of 
Twenty  Millions,"  125;  issues 
Emancipation  Proclamation, 
128;  at  Petersburg,  in  1864, 
143;  his  attitude  toward  the 
Confederate  leaders,  148;  his 
assassination,  150;  funeral  ser- 
vices, 152. 

Lincoln,  Professor  Isaac  N.,  74. 

Long,  Governor  John  D.,  385. 

Low,  Seth,  329,  331. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  99,  109, 
197,  209,  399. 

Lyman  Beecher  lectures,  324. 

McCarthy,  Justin,  182. 
McClellan,    General    George    B., 

124,  125. 
MacDonald,  George,  85. 
McDowell,  General  Irvin,  117. 


Mackenzie,  Commodore  Alex- 
ander Slidell,  76. 

Mackenzie,  General  Ranald  SU- 
dell,  76. 

McKinley,  President  William, 
383  fi^. 

McVickar,  Bishop,  215. 

Maine  prohibitory  law,  50. 

Mansfield  College,  Oxford,  324. 

Manufactures,  domestic,  14. 

Martineau,  Reverend  James,  357. 

Matthews,  Stanley,  210. 

Meade,  General  George  G.,  130. 

MeadAalle  Theological  School, 
324. 

Merriam,  Reverend  James  F., 
261. 

Michigan,  13. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  256. 

Miller  and  Millerism,  59,  60. 

Miller,  Joaquin,  191. 

Ministerial  function,  the,  416  ff. 

Missionaries,  as  theological  re- 
formers, 290. 

Missouri,  13. 

Monopolies  must  be  owned  by 
the  people,  309,  314,  345. 

Moody,  Dwight  L.,  428. 

Moody,  Secretary  W.  H.,  385. 

Moral  theology,  demand  for, 
223  ff. 

Morrisania,  N.  Y.,  in  1861,  115. 

Mount  Tom,  Mass.,  3,  18,  240. 

"Mountains,  The,"  college  song, 
81. 

Munger,  Reverend  T.  T.,  119, 
265. 

Municipal  problem,  the,  328  ff. ; 
boards  and  commissions,  331 ; 
Galveston  and  Des  Moines 
plan,  333 ;  EngHsh  system,  333 ; 
city  transportation,  340;  natu- 
ral  gas  supply,  343;   electric 


442 


INDEX 


lighting,  344;  public  service 
industries,  346;  the  spoils 
system,  348;  water-supply, 
349. 
Municipal  Voters'  League,  379- 
383. 

National  Council  of  Congrega- 
tional Churches,  399  ff. 

National  Municipal  League,  330. 

Nast,  Thomas,  200-202;  212. 

Nebraska  Bill,  49,  50,  65. 

Negro  problem,  the,  366  ff. ;  the 
American  Missionary  Associa- 
tion, 366;  southern  schools 
and  colleges  for  negroes,  367 ; 
Southern  Education  Board, 
368;  testimonies  of  southern 
white  men,  369  ff. ;  the  negro 
needs  a  complete  education, 
334. 

New  Britain,  Conn.,  21. 

"New  Idolatry,  The,"  407. 

New  School  Cah-inists,  58. 

New  York  city,  13,  67,  68,  110, 
131-135. 

Newspaper  ethics,  234  ff. 

North  Adams,  Mass.,  68;  life  in, 
158-173;  amusement  contro- 
versy in,  168  ff. ;  Chinese 
labor  in,  171-173;  ecclesiastical 
council  in,  265. 

Norwich,  Conn.,  3. 

O'Brien,  James,  200. 

O'Conor,  Charles,  207. 

Ohio  constitution,  amending  the, 

317,318. 
Ohio  State  University,  323. 
Oneida  Community,  186. 
"On  to  Richmond,"  116. 
"Outlook,  The,"  323. 
Owego,  N.  Y.,  4;  40  ff. 


Owego  Academy,  64. 
Owego  "  Gazette,"  40. 

Page,  William,  186. 
Palmer,  Governor  John  M.,  210. 
Parliament  of  Religions,  359. 
Patton,    Reverend    Francis    L., 

225  ff. 
Perry,  Professor  Arthur  L.,  74. 
Petersburg,     Va.,    invested,    in 

1864,  139. 
Phillips,  Professor  John  L.    T., 

74. 
Pierce,  President  Franklin,  45. 
"Plain  Thoughts  on  the  Art  of 

Living,"  173. 
Piatt,  Thomas  C,  66. 
Plymouth,  Mass.,  3. 
Poetry,  its  spiritual  uses,  413. 
Poland's    Committee    on    Credit 

Mobilier,  218. 
Polk  and  annexation,  22. 
Pope,  General  John,  124. 
Popular  hysteria,  155-157. 
Porter,  General  Horace,  143. 
Porter,  President  Noah,  of  Yale, 

265. 
Porter,  Colonel  Peter  A.,  140. 
Pottsgrove,  Pa.,  1,  7. 
Predatory    wealth    and    public 

teachers,  404;  and  politicians, 

408,  409. 
Printing-office,  a  coimtry,  42-44. 
Proctor,  Lincoln  Redfield,  385. 
Progress  in  philosophy,  425. 
Prohibitory  liquor  laws,  50. 
Prostitution  of  the  press,  236. 
Public   service    industries,    309, 

346. 
Pulpit,  the,  and  the  labor  ques- 
tion, 150  ff. ;    the  freedom  of, 

415,  416;  social  leadership  in, 

420. 


INDEX 


443 


Railways,  the  first,  13;  railway 
journey  in  1844,  20,  21. 

Reading  aloud,  24  ff. 

Rebels  and  traitors,  178. 

Reconstruction,  the  foolishness 
of,  176  ff. 

Religion  is  friendship,  429, 

Republican  Party,  origin  of,  22; 
organization  of,  66. 

"Republican,"  Springfield,  49, 
82,  83,  173,  242-245. 

Rhodes,  James  F.,  quoted,  134, 
143,  146,  148,  181,  192,  201. 

Richardson,  Charles  F.,  215. 

Riis,  Jacob,  1. 

Robertson,  Reverend  Frederick 
W.,  119. 

Robinson,  Reverend  Charles  S., 
215. 

Robinson,  Governor  George  D., 
303. 

Rockefeller,  John  D.,  401,  406. 

Roman  Catholic  Church,  52, 359- 
365. 

Roosevelt,  President  Theodore, 
330;  his  naval  policy,  388; 
his  work  as  a  peacemaker,  389 ; 
his  accession  to  the  presidency, 
390 ;  his  attitude  toward  pre- 
datory wealth,  391-395;  the 
anthracite  coal  strike,  395  ff. 

Root,  Secretary  Elihu,  385,  389. 

Roscher,  Wilhelm,  297. 

Ryder  Lectures  in  Chicago,  324. 

Saint-Gaudens,  Augustus,  134. 
"Salary  Grab,"  220. 
Sanitary  Commission,  141. 
Schofield,  General  J.  A.,  144. 
School,  a  country  district,  27,30. 
School  district  libraries,  in  New 

York,  22. 
Schurz,  Carl,  1,  213. 


Scientific  progress,  425. 
Scott,  General  Winfield,  45,  104. 
"Scribner's  Monthly,"  174. 
Scudder,  Horace  E.,  77,  297. 
Secession  threatened,  97;  peace- 
able, as  a  policy,  103-106. 
Second  probation,  debate  about, 

290. 
Secret  societies  in  politics,  53,  54 ; 

359-365. 
"Seven  Puzzling  Bible  Books," 

412. 
Seventh  Regiment,  New  York, 

112. 
Seward,  William  H.,  92,  128. 
Seymour,  Horatio,  130,  133. 
Shaler,  Professor  N.  S.,  109. 
Shaw,  Colonel  Robert  G.,  134. 
Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  282. 
Sheridan,  General  Philip  H.,  145. 
Sherman,  John,  385. 
Sherman,  General  W.  T.,  144. 
"Sigma  Chi,"  a    Clerical    Club, 

215. 
Si.xth    Massachusetts    Infantry, 

111. 
Slidell,  John,  77. 
Smith,  Gerrit,  62. 
Smith,  Professor  Henry  B.,  118. 
Smith,  Robertson,  319. 
Smith,  Roswell,  174,  274,  283. 
Social  changes,  16. 
"Social  Facts  and  Forces,"  324. 
'Social  Salvation,"  324. 
Socialism,  306  ff. 
"  Something    about    manhood," 

266. 
Souls  that  need  saving,  253. 
South    Carolina    and    Secession, 

97,  102. 
Southampton,    Mass.,    3;    rural 

life  in,  in  1843,  18-20. 
Spain  in  the  19th  century,  424. 


444 


INDEX 


Spanish  War,  the,  385  fif. 
Spear,  Reverend  Samuel  T.,  187. 
Spencer,  John  C,  77. 
Spottsylvania,  battle  of,  136. 
Springfield,  Mass.,  83;  home  in, 

239;   character  of,   241,    242; 

industrial  depression  in,  248; 

lectures  to  workingmen,  250. 
Springfield    "  Republican."    See 

"Republican." 
Standard  Oil  Company,  401. 
Steamboats,  the  first,  13. 
Stedman,  Edmund  C,  191. 
Stevens,  Thaddeus,  176. 
Stoddard,  Richard  H.,  191. 
Stone  River,  battle  of,  129. 
Storrs,  Reverend  Richard  S.,  89, 

98,  214. 
Story,  Joseph,  182. 
Strike    of     coal-miners    in     the 

Hocking  Valley,  29  ff. 
Students  in  college,  325-327. 
Sumner,  Charles,  176,  213. 
"Sun,"  New  York,  213. 
"Sunday  Afternoon,"   a  maga- 
zine, 272. 
Supernatural,  domestication    ef, 

427. 
Sweeney,  Peter  B.,  197. 
Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles,  40. 
Swing,  Reverend  Da\'id,  trial  for 

heresy,   223   ff. ;  resigns  from 

the  Presbyterian  ministry,  227 ; 

his  subsequent  career,  230. 
Swollen  fortunes,  315. 
Symonds,  John  Addington,  294. 

Talmage,  Reverend  T.  De  Witt, 

214. 
Tatlock,  Professor  John,  73. 
Taylor,  Bayard,  121,  122. 
Taj'lor,    Reverend   William   M., 

215. 


Texas,  annexation  of,  22. 
Thomas,  General  George  H.,  144. 
Thompson,  Reverend  J.  P.,  63. 
Thurman.  Senator  A.  G.,  293. 
Ticknor,  George,  109. 
Tilton,  Theodore,  180,  182,  183. 
"Times,"    New    York,    and  the 

Tweed  Ring,  198-204. 
Todd,  Reverend  John,  167. 
"Tools  and  the  Man,"  324. 
Toynbee,  Arnold,  95,  96. 
Tracy,   Secretary   Benjamin   F.^ 

31^  50,  51. 
Tremont  Temple  meeting,  303. 
"Tribune,"  New  York,   24,   31, 

68,   94,    103,    112,    116,    126^ 

133. 
Trumbull,  Lyman,  210. 
Tuskegee  Institute,  373. 
Tweed  Ring,  the,  197  ff. 
Tyler,  Professor  Moses  Coit,  86, 

96,  415. 

"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  45. 
Union  meeting  in  Cleveland,  301 . 
Union     Relief     Association     of 

Springfield,  248. 
Universalists,  37. 

Van  Dyke,  Reverend  Henry  J., 

93. 
Vermont  resolutions,  268. 
Vicksburg,  capture  of,  130. 

Wagner,  Adolf,  297. 
Walker,  Francis  A.,  297. 
War,  its  natural  fruit,  221. 
War  prices,  124. 
Ward,  William  Hayes,  182,  184. 
Washington,  Booker  T.,  1,  375. 
Washingtonville,  Pa.,  9. 
Western  Reserve  University,  414. 
Westminster  Abbey,  355. 


INDEX 


445 


"Where  Does  the  Sky  Begin?" 
411. 

Whiskey  Ring,  220. 

White,  Andrew  D.,  199,  415. 

Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  40, 
223,  239,  353,  422. 

"Who  Wrote  the  Bible?"  320, 
412. 

"Wide-awake"  movement,  92. 

Wilderness,  battle  of,  136. 

Williams  College,  in  1856,  69; 
its  curriculum,  68-70;  its  in- 
structors, 70-75;  undergradu- 
ates in,  76-78;  music  in,  80, 
81. 

"Williams  Quarterly,"  79. 

Williamstown,  Mass.,  68,  158. 


Willis,  Nathaniel  Parker,  42. 

Wilson,  Henry,  189,  214,  216. 

Wilson,  Secretary  James,  385. 

Wilson,  President  Woodrow,  14, 
48,  52. 

Winthrop,  Theodore,  112. 

Wisconsin,  13. 

"Witnesses  of  the  Light,"  324. 

Wood,  Fernando,  110. 

Wool,  General  John  E.,  133. 

Woolsey,  Sarah  C.  191. 

Wordsworth,  William,  1,  17, 
158. 

"Workingmen  and  their  Em- 
ployers," 250  ff. 

World's  Missionary  Conference, 
354. 


CAMBRIDGE   .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .    A 


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